Strike ballot over BBC cuts

BBC unions have voted unanimously to ballot for national strike action, in protest at compulsory redundancies and other changes.

Representatives of BECTU, NUJ, and Unite, meeting in London today (November 22) voted for industrial action ballots after hearing that the BBC planned compulsory redundancies, despite the emergence of hundreds of volunteers.

The meeting followed a BBC-wide day of action on 5 November, with meetings and pavement gatherings at buildings across the UK.

Representatives heard that talks had been held earlier in the week with BBC Vision and BBC News over Director General Mark Thompson's proposals to slash a total of 2,500 jobs across the corporation, which were announced on 18 October.

Unions were informed that 343 staff had volunteered for redundancy in News, and 303 staff in Vision. The BBC’s target for cuts was 328 in News and 440 in Vision.

However, management would not guarantee that those who have come forward as volunteers will be allowed to go. Adding to union anger, management in BBC Vision, the TV production division, announced that the process of selecting staff for compulsory redundancy while at the same time considering the volunteers  in effect cherry-picking staff  as soon as possible.

Further compulsory redundancies are threatened in BBC Scotland and other parts of the corporation including the World Service, and the Thompson cuts plan also affects Nations & Regions, Future Media & Technology, and Audio & Music.

Unions are demanding that the trawls for volunteers should be extended, and that more effort should be made to retrain and redeploy threatened staff in the 700 new jobs that the BBC plans to create in the next five years.

On top of the 2,500 job cuts, the BBC plans to withhold unpredictability allowances (UPA) from new staff from 1 January 2008 and implement changes to the pension scheme from April 2010 - plans that the unions have rejected.

Gerry Morrissey, BECTU's General Secretary reacted by saying: "The BBC has left us with no option than to ballot our members for strike action. I am confident that we will get an overwhelming 'Yes' vote and that very successful strike action will take place at the beginning of January."

He added: "The current financial shortfall of £2.2bn is a shortfall based on the BBC's wish list to government which was not agreed as part of the licence fee settlement. Rather than continuing with this wish list, we believe that BBC management should be using the available resources to deliver quality programmes across Factual, Drama News and Sport. This is what the general public wants, not the BBC's expansion plans."

Luke Crawley, Assistant General Secretary said: "The BBC appears to believe that compulsory redundancies will solve the problem it faces. In doing so it displays a lack of imagination and fails to see that a demoralised workforce will find it harder to produce the high quality programmes needed to justify the licence fee. BECTU members are ready and willing to take strike action to oppose these cuts."

Meanwhile, Supervisory Official Helen Ryan commented: "We have been outraged by BBC management's attempt to run rough-shod over national agreements, especially in relation to the cherry-picking that has been proposed in Vision. Our members are extremely concerned that the changes to UPA and pensions, if pushed through, will lead to the gradual degradation of terms and conditions across the board and this must not be allowed to happen."

Ballot papers will go out to members after 30 November and the ballot will close on 9 January 2008. If members vote to strike, industrial action could take place seven days after this.