National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members at the BBC have voted 72 per cent in favour of strike action and 87 per cent in favour of action short of a strike. Thousands of journalists at the BBC are threatening to hold two national one-day strikes in July unless compulsory redundancies are stopped at the BBC.
The strike ballot was called after it became clear that compulsory redundancies would arise from cuts to the World Service and BBC Monitoring, where 387 posts are scheduled to close.
Union representatives from across the BBC met yesterday and passed the following motion:
“This meeting of BBC M/Focs condemns the BBC’s intention to make NUJ members compulsorily redundant. We note the dismissal of an NUJ member in the BBC World Service on the grounds of compulsory redundancy last month, despite viable redeployment options being available. We reiterate the policy of no compulsory redundancies among NUJ members and call on the BBC to resolve the outstanding cases. We believe there are workable solutions in all cases. We further note that there are many volunteers that the BBC is currently refusing to release.
“We condemn the fact that the additional £2.2 million granted by the Foreign Office to the World Service for the next three years has not been used to halt all compulsory redundancies and in some instances is being used to create jobs overseas while closing jobs in the UK. We believe that the BBC’s resources should be spent on protecting core journalism and programming for audiences. We welcome the principle, endorsed by the Chairman of the BBC Trust, of linking median and top pay at the BBC and have been campaigning for this for more than two years. However we do not believe this proposal goes far enough. We therefore reiterate our policy that the differential should be no more than five times median salary. We agree that executive pay at the BBC is a toxic issue which has seriously damaged the corporation and that pay levels at the top continue to be unacceptable – particularly at a time when NUJ members are threatened with compulsory redundancy.
“This meeting of BBC M/FoCs calls on the BBC to attend urgent talks to resolve the outstanding threat of compulsory redundancy to NUJ members and to re-instate the member dismissed in the BBC World Service, Bengali section. If the BBC fails to address these matters within the next 7 days, this meeting authorises the General Secretary to call NUJ members out in industrial action.”
In a staff email sent in response to the announcements, director of News Helen Boaden emphasised that turnout for the ballot was less than 40%, involving 1,248 members - 6% of BBC staff.
“We will continue with our efforts to limit the number of compulsory redundancies but the number of posts that have to close means that unfortunately it is likely to be impossible for us to avoid some compulsory redundancies,’ she said, adding that the extra FCO funding for World Service was ‘not enough to allow us to avoid having to continue with this process”.
She continued: “I understand that many of you who are NUJ members will face a personal choice about whether or not to take part in this industrial action. Before you make that decision I want to stress that we will continue to do all we can to limit the number of compulsory redundancies though at this point we have no other options available to us.”
(Sources: NUJ/BBC Ariel via Media Network Weblog)
The strike ballot was called after it became clear that compulsory redundancies would arise from cuts to the World Service and BBC Monitoring, where 387 posts are scheduled to close.
Union representatives from across the BBC met yesterday and passed the following motion:
“This meeting of BBC M/Focs condemns the BBC’s intention to make NUJ members compulsorily redundant. We note the dismissal of an NUJ member in the BBC World Service on the grounds of compulsory redundancy last month, despite viable redeployment options being available. We reiterate the policy of no compulsory redundancies among NUJ members and call on the BBC to resolve the outstanding cases. We believe there are workable solutions in all cases. We further note that there are many volunteers that the BBC is currently refusing to release.
“We condemn the fact that the additional £2.2 million granted by the Foreign Office to the World Service for the next three years has not been used to halt all compulsory redundancies and in some instances is being used to create jobs overseas while closing jobs in the UK. We believe that the BBC’s resources should be spent on protecting core journalism and programming for audiences. We welcome the principle, endorsed by the Chairman of the BBC Trust, of linking median and top pay at the BBC and have been campaigning for this for more than two years. However we do not believe this proposal goes far enough. We therefore reiterate our policy that the differential should be no more than five times median salary. We agree that executive pay at the BBC is a toxic issue which has seriously damaged the corporation and that pay levels at the top continue to be unacceptable – particularly at a time when NUJ members are threatened with compulsory redundancy.
“This meeting of BBC M/FoCs calls on the BBC to attend urgent talks to resolve the outstanding threat of compulsory redundancy to NUJ members and to re-instate the member dismissed in the BBC World Service, Bengali section. If the BBC fails to address these matters within the next 7 days, this meeting authorises the General Secretary to call NUJ members out in industrial action.”
In a staff email sent in response to the announcements, director of News Helen Boaden emphasised that turnout for the ballot was less than 40%, involving 1,248 members - 6% of BBC staff.
“We will continue with our efforts to limit the number of compulsory redundancies but the number of posts that have to close means that unfortunately it is likely to be impossible for us to avoid some compulsory redundancies,’ she said, adding that the extra FCO funding for World Service was ‘not enough to allow us to avoid having to continue with this process”.
She continued: “I understand that many of you who are NUJ members will face a personal choice about whether or not to take part in this industrial action. Before you make that decision I want to stress that we will continue to do all we can to limit the number of compulsory redundancies though at this point we have no other options available to us.”
(Sources: NUJ/BBC Ariel via Media Network Weblog)
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