Action to defend jobs and working conditions
BBC DIRECTOR-GENERAL Mark Thompson’s announcement of 3,780 job cuts
is a fundamental attack on the trade union rights, pay and conditions of
BBC journalists and staff.
Molly Cooper, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) national
executive, personal capacity
It is claimed the job cuts are being carried out in the name of
efficiency, to cut waste and bureaucracy. But many services have already
been cut to the bone, with journalists working longer and longer hours
in unsafe conditions, for no extra pay.
Job cuts are also ‘justified’ by promises of investment in digital
services. But you don’t invest in new services by massively cutting your
workforce.
The money exists to fund the BBC, just like the money exists to fund
all public services. But it is the drive to satisfy commercial interests
that is driving Mark Thompson and media bosses towards these job cuts –
encouraged by the government’s neo-liberal agenda for greater
privatisation of public services.
Thompson and the government intend to break-up the BBC’s role as a
public service broadcaster. They want to introduce competition and
market forces, drive down the profile of services funded by the licence
fee, and sell off juicy departments to commercial providers to run for
profit.
If the job cuts are allowed to go ahead, this will give BBC
management a green light to take a sledge hammer to the trade union
agreements, working conditions and pay levels of journalists who will be
left behind to pick up the pieces.
We have to fight to defend every job but also we need to demand that
good quality journalism means well-paid journalists delivering it.
Where departments are not facing job cuts, but working conditions are
poor, we have to argue that taking part in action to fight the cuts is
not just about maintaining the status quo. We should demand well-funded
public service broadcasting, with decent pay for journalists, with trade
union agreements recognised and observed by management, covering working
hours, night pay and benefits, health and safety, and bullying and
harassment.
Unions have correctly given BBC bosses a deadline to confirm there
will be no compulsory redundancies. But the unions need to show that
they are prepared to follow the militant example of other public-sector
unions, who threatened to take co-ordinated industrial action in defence
of pension rights and forced the government to back down, should the BBC
go ahead with its plans.
The unions – especially the NUJ – need to prepare the way for at
least a one-day warning strike throughout the BBC, to be followed up
with further action if the BBC bosses don’t back down. This would show
managers that every job will be defended and that BBC workers won’t
accept any worsening of terms and conditions.
