Staff walk out in BBC Children’s

A 24-hour strike over compulsory redundancies is being mounted by members in BBC Children’s TV today (July 10).

The strikers, all employed in the CBBC Education Unit, are protesting at a management decision to make six of them compulsorily redundant, even though sufficient volunteers are available.

Between them the six staff facing the sack have 100 years of experience, and the union has argued that they could easily transfer their skills to other roles in the department, allowing volunteers to leave.

As well as denying the CBBC Six the chance of resettlement, the local management have inflamed feelings by taking on large numbers of freelance workers while unsuccessful talks over the redundancies were going on.

Since 2001, Children’s Education department has been part of CBBC, and there has been a two-way flow of staff moving in and out of the section.

Management treated the section as an integrated part of CBBC until February this year, when redundancies were announced, and the Education members were deemed to be "specialised", and inappropriate for resettlement in their parent department.

A trawl for volunteeers across CBBC produced 15 staff who were willing to leave on redundancy terms, but the management turned them down, leaving six Education staff stranded under threat of compulsory redundancy.

Today's one day strike comes after a unanimous vote among union members in the department to resist these compulsory cuts, and the entire department of 12 staff joined the stoppage.

BECTU BBC Supervisory Official Helen Ryan commented: "The BBC is refusing to redeploy these experienced staff, even though we know there are people in other parts of Children’s TV who would take voluntary redundancy which would free up roles for these people.

"We are saddened that the unanimous vote for strike action by BECTU and NUJ members did not prompt the BBC to rethink its decision and retract the redundancy notices.

"Our members had no alternative but to take strike action today, and I'm pleased to say that the stoppage has been backed fully by the members affected, and other BBC staff have offered their support for the fight against compulsory redundancies."