BBC staff - join your union!

BECTU is inviting new members to join up in the week that major changes are announced at the BBC

Membership forms are being distributed in BBC workplaces across the UK, and an online version can be downloaded here

The union is bracing itself for a wave of cuts and changes following an announcement due to be made by the BBC's new Director-General Mark Thompson on December 7.

Despite months of rumour and speculation, much of it self-contradictory, BECTU has kept its message to staff simple: compulsory redundancies, and enforced moves of staff, will be resisted firmly, with industrial action if needed.

BBC staff who are not currently in the union are being urged to sign up and strengthen the union's bargaining hand when management begin negotiations on the changes.

Thompson will outline his vision for a slimmed-down BBC on the morning of December 7, after which representatives of BECTU and the journalists' union NUJ will meet to discuss a joint response to his plans for change.

No details will be available until Thompson speaks, but union officials are already warning that the BBC's staff could be facing the worst round of cuts since John Birt's legendary attack on the workforce in the early 1990s.

As the debate about a new Charter for the BBC heats up, BECTU believes that Thompson's plan for change is partly aimed at the government, in a bid to demonstrate that the Corporation is willing to tighten its belt in preparation for reduced income.