BBC staff edge closer to strike

Owen Gibson
Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday November 20 2007
BBC staff moved a step closer to strike action today after the first in a series of meetings between unions and management ended in stalemate.
The corporation was seeking to make 440 redundancies at production arm BBC Vision in the first tranche of two rounds of cuts that will ultimately account for 725 job losses.
But union sources said management had received only 303 expressions of interest from people inquiring about the terms of redundancy and were determined to press ahead with compulsory cuts to bridge the gap.
Bectu and NUJ officials will meet with news management tomorrow, where the gap between the number of expressions of interest and the number of redundancies is expected to be much smaller, before a joint union meeting on Thursday at which they are likely to press for a strike ballot.
Overall, BBC director general Mark Thompson plans to cut 2,500 posts, with an overall total of 1,800 redundancies due to some staff being redeployed.
He is keen to conclude the process swiftly but unions have consistently warned they would ballot for industrial action if compulsory redundancies were enforced.
Union officials have also said the complex redundancy terms, with some staff barred from being re-employed for a period of time, mean that staff should be given longer to make up their mind.
BBC Vision is facing the largest overall number of redundancies, with factual programming taking the biggest hit as more programmes are outsourced to independent producers under the Window of Creative Competition.
There will also be fewer programmes made overall, with Thompson ordering a 10% cut in the commissioning budget as part of a policy to make fewer programmes with more impact across more platforms.

I think the BBC should go on strike because it is not fair that they are making so many redundancies, especially if they are barred from being re-employed because this means they will be left unemployed and is not loyal of the BBC to do. And strike will be bad publicity for the BBC so they may re consider making so many people redundant. In a way i am glad they are cutting the [rogrammes down because sometimes they show junk, for example, my family, it used to be good, but now it is annoying and they could put something better on.