In an industrial action ballot which closed on March 19, more than 96% of BECTU members working at London's West End theatres voted to strike in support of the union's campaign to banish low pay. BECTU delayed publishing the ballot result while SOLT made last-minute efforts to improve the pay offer that members had rejected. After more than two days of closed-door negotiations, the employers tabled a new package, backdated to February 11. At a mass meeting on March 22, members voted to run a secret ballot on the new proposals, without any recommendation to accept or reject.
The two-stage pay offer includes an average 6% increase for front-of-house staff; pay rises worth up to £1040 per year for technical staff working 40 hours per week; a further across-the-board increase on October 7 of 4%, or RPI plus 1%, whichever is higher; three months of discussions at a joint forum to draft a ‘modernised collective agreement’, which will include career opportunities and work/life balance. Across the ten staff grades covered by the union's collective agreement with SOLT, the new offer is equal to an average 11.3% increase by the time of the next pay anniversary of October 2003.
"This beats the Low Pay Unit threshold of £6.82 per hour, and is a first step to tackling poverty pay among theatre workers," commented BECTU official Mark David-Gray. Voting on the new package started on Monday, and the consultative ballot will be timed to close within four weeks of the closing date for the first, industrial action, ballot. Any industrial action triggered by a strike ballot must, under UK labour laws, be taken within four weeks of the strike ballot closing.
(Ruth Rossington)
