This is taken from the Daily Telegraph:

BBC pension bosses to face angry staff at 1,000-strong meeting
By Neil Midgley, Assistant Editor (Media)
Published: 12:01AM BST 24 Aug 2010

BBC pension bosses face an angry confrontation with staff next month, after more than 1,100 people signed a petition calling for an extraordinary meeting of the corporation’s pension scheme.

The step – which is thought to be unprecedented in the BBC pension scheme’s 61-year history – will call on the pension fund’s trustees to face staff face-to-face.

Many BBC employees believe that the pension fund trustees – chaired by Jeremy Peat, who is also a member of the corporation’s supervisory BBC Trust – are failing to champion their cause against BBC management, who are seeking to make deep cuts to pension provision at the corporation.

“This is another prong to the campaign to force the BBC to back off from these pension cuts,” said one BBC member of the National Union of Journalists, which is also balloting its members for strike action over the changes. “It’ll be a real spanner in the BBC’s works.”

The meeting could be particularly difficult for BBC finance director Zarin Patel, who is a trustee of the pension scheme but also the architect of the BBC’s proposed cuts to it. The corporation is seeking to address a £2 billion deficit in the scheme.

Staff have been particularly angered by a proposed cap of one per cent a year on the rate at which pensionable pay can increase.

Because the cap will affect the value of pension contributions already made in previous years, the broadcasting unions – particularly Bectu and the NUJ – have called it “pensions robbery”.

The pension fund trustees have no choice but to call the meeting, with only 100 signatures from pension scheme members necessary to trigger it.

It is likely to take place in the second week of September at a large central London venue, possibly the auditorium at the Euston Road headquarters of the Society of Friends.

By that point, BBC staff may already be taking strike action against the proposed cuts, with the results of the strike ballot to be published next week.

Over 1,000 BBC staff are likely to turn up to vent their frustration at the trustees. The resolution before the meeting will state: “This meeting of the members of the BBC pension scheme calls on the trustees to perform their duties to protect the benefits of the members. Specifically we call on them to oppose the BBC’s plans to reduce the value of contributions already made to the scheme.”

The NUJ has also issued a separate legal challenge to the trustees, saying that it may take them to court if they allow the BBC to implement the cap on pensionable pay.