ITV staff are set to strike next Thursday after unions rejected a 2% pay offer as “insulting”.
Members of the NUJ, Bectu and Unite all voted in favour of the action, which will coincide with the broadcaster’s AGM on 14 May.
The NUJ said that more than 77% of its members had voted for the 24-hour strike, which it said could affect live programmes including news bulletins and Good Morning Britain.
Staff rejected ITV’s pay offer in January and talks between the unions and ITV at conciliation service Acas broke down in February, after ITV failed to improve its current offer of an increase of 2% for those earning £60,000 or less, plus a bonus of up to £1,200 and an extra day’s holiday.
NUJ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, said: “My members are not going to accept this cheap-as-chips pay offer when we know ITV is able to give Adam Crozier, its chief executive, a bonus of £8.4m and it has been on a £1.4bn spending spree on company buy-ups while its staff face hardship because of their paltry pay.
“It is, frankly, an insult to offer 2% to our members who were prepared to make sacrifices when times were tough at ITV. Now, with fortunes on the turn and an increase of 6% in advertising revenue last year, why is ITV being so mean?
“Our members have made their message clear. Unless ITV can come back with a better offer, they will be taking strike action next week.”
An ITV spokesperson said only 232 union members had voted to strike out of workforce of 3,000, and that the channel had contingency plans in place to ensure broadcasts would not be affected.
The spokesperson added: “We are fully prepared to maintain an open dialogue with union representatives following the ballot result today, which has seen 232 union members voting to strike out of a UK workforce of 3,000 employees.
“We have made an above inflation one year pay increase of 2%, effective from 1 January, which is on top of the 11.5% of pay rises over the last four years, some way ahead of other media sector pay awards.
“We are also the only UK broadcaster to pay the living wage. Eligible colleagues also received the maximum £1,200 bonus in their pay packets in March and we have increased the 2015 bonus opportunity to its maximum £1,500 which would be paid next year.”
