Strike ballot at the BBC

TRADE UNIONS at the BBC are balloting for strike action after
Director General Mark Thompson refused to guarantee there will be no
compulsory redundancies following the corporation’s recent announcement
of over 3,000 job cuts.

Luke Crawley, lead negotiator for BECTU, the broadcasting union at
the BBC, spoke to the socialist about why the three main unions – BECTU,
NUJ and Amicus – are preparing to take action:

"Negotiations with the BBC have broken down now. Members are
outraged at what’s happened here because they see the changes by Mark
Thompson are catastrophic. The 20% cut in staff is the most serious and
damaging cuts in the BBC since it came into existence in 1922.

"They are going to have the effect of selling several
significant parts of the company, Broadcast Limited and Resources
Limited; also, outsourcing very large numbers of staff in different
sections. It seems the only reason for this is to reduce the headcount.

"We’re running an industrial action ballot of all unions across
the corporation and we are having a serious of union meetings across the
country, which have been very well-attended. The response in all the
meetings has been very positive and I am confident there is going to be
a very big turnout in the ballot and a very big ‘yes’ vote for action.

"We get the ballot results on 11 May and will be meeting the day
after where the joint unions will decide what form the strike action
will take.

"The likely form of industrial action will be a 12 or 24-hour
stoppage first. That has yet to be decided by the joint unions but the
intention will be to take all our members out across the entire
corporation for a sustained period to make them understand how angry
people are at the stupidity of these changes."

Socialist Party members in the NUJ have produced a special bulletin
outlining a fighting strategy to defend jobs and working conditions in
the BBC. It calls for at least a one-day warning strike throughout the
BBC to be followed up with further action if BBC bosses don’t back down.

It also calls on the NUJ to deliver on the decision taken at its
national conference in April this year to call a one-day conference of
union members to discuss a strategy to defend public-sector
broadcasting.