BBC staff are set to ballot for strike over plans to axe up to 2500 jobs. The mood is angry and a big ‘yes’ vote is likely among the 23,000 workers. The three unions involved are Bectu, Unite and the National Union of Journalists.
Unions condemned management plans to cut up to 20% staff in core news and current affairs departments of the BBC as part of a £2.2bn cost-saving package.
And they hit out at the BBC Trust for failing in its duty by approving the plans and accused management of repeating the mistakes of 3 years ago when the BBC cut almost 4000 staff. There is also widespread anger across the BBC at management seeking to ignore union agreements and force people out the door before unions have had chance to scrutinise the plans and negotiate.
The unions fear the cuts will further increase workloads for staff who remain and undermine the ability of staff to produce quality programmes as they are forced to cut corners. Director General Mark Thompson says he has to put licence-fee payers first, but the cuts are not in the interests of viewers and listeners any more than of BBC workers. The BBC has a public service remit. How can they carry that out if the government cuts the licence fee income in real terms?
Some union members in the BBC’s News Division have highlighted the huge salaries paid to some presenters whilst jobs are being cut. Jonathon Ross earns £18m over three years – the equivalent of the annual salaries of 600 frontline broadcast journalists.
NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: "Whilst BBC managers mouth fine platitudes about safeguarding those parts of the BBC on which it has built its reputation they are busy cutting jobs at the very heart of public service broadcasting. If they want to find savings they should look to executive bonuses, multi-million pound salaries and the money wasted on consultants.
"You cannot cut staffing on that scale and not damage the quality of programmes or demand more work from already hard-pressed staff. Managers failed us in 2005 when they told staff if we took the pain then the future of the BBC would be safe. Yet here we are again facing another BBC repeat performance".
