Acting dispute continues
Acting Conditions of Service in London Operations remain in dispute.ESPG is arguing that staff successful at acting Boards, resulting from the London Operations negotiations last year, should retain their substantive Conditions of Service whilst undertaking acting.
Staff should retain their conditions when, for example, acting from an Hours Conditions category into a Days Conditions areas.
Management believe that Hours staff, such as LVC2s and Sound Assistants, should work to Days Conditions when undertaking acting to supervisory level.
The Branch is objecting because:
- It is the normal situation that staff should retain their substantive conditions when carrying out acting.
- It unclear practically how staff moving from Hours to Days, sometimes on a daily basis, would make such claims as overtime.
The numbers proposed during the London Operations negotiations are shown in [brackets] below - a written explanation of the difference in numbers has been requested from management (although it is believed that a number of changes are due to a number of staff recently leaving the BBC):
- Cameras - 4 [3] substantive; 0 [0] 100% acting; 3 [4] 50% acting.
- Sound - 2 [0] substantive; 3 [5] 100% acting; 5 [4] 50% acting.
- Lighting - 2 [2] substantive; 0 [2] 100% acting; 3 [2] 50% acting.
The payments should have been in the December 2001 payroll, although some errors in payments (particularly in Studio Sound) had to be adjusted for in January.
These payment should have been consolidated into basic pay as an ongoing payment, and therefore did not appear as an additional payment. Staff receiving such payments should have received separate written confirmation.
Shown below is an update on payments in ESPG areas, with the original proposals shown in [brackets].
| Category | Numbers receiving ERR |
ERR compensation payment |
| Post Production |  |
|
| Assistants | ? [89] | ? [£119.00] |
| Sound | ? [6] | ? [£66.50] |
| Section Assistants | ? [39] | ? [£6.00] |
| Studios | |
|
| Studio Engineers | 14 [20] | £145.00 [£66.00] |
| Cameramen | 24* [40] | £75.00 [£30.50] |
| LVCs | 15* [24] | £322.00 [£167.50] |
| Scenic Ops | 24 [20] | £75.00 [£0.54] |
| Sound | 34* [38] | £451.00 [£247.00] |
| Technical Services | |
|
| Engineers | ? [37] | ? [£168.00] |
| Stores | ? [11] | ? [£105.00] |
Notes on the above table:
- * indicates current figures exclude those substantively promoted under the Boards above.
- Current figures in 'numbers receiving ERR' column should include those on 100% or 50% acting resulting form the Boards above (ie these should have received ERR compensation payments).
- ? indicates confirmation of current figures awaited from management.
- Payments have increased for some categories due to the Boards above.
- Those on SFS (Special Fixed Salary) arrangements excluded from payments since not subject to ERR payments.
- The ERR compensation payments are calculated from 60% [50%] of ERR earned in the financial year 2000-2001 for each category divided by the number of applicable staff. The payments should have been rounded up to the nearest 50p, and are subject to a £75 minimum payment.