BBC NUJ members prepare for strike ballot

Letter to ALL MEMBERS AT THE BBC
Colleagues

You will have seen the announcement concerning senior managers and pay. Whilst we welcome pay restraint at the very top and have been calling for it for many years, for many the announcement will be seen as too little, too late. Particularly, as the executive board recently were awarded consolidated increases on their basic pay of more than 30%. Some within the wider senior manager group (our members, for example) are deserving of an increase however, the Union does not currently have negotiating rights for this group of workers.

Following a meeting of our reps across the BBC, the Joint Unions have submitted our pay claim for this year. We are clear that we are seeking a significant increase for all members within grades 2-11. The claim is for an across the board payment of £1,800, this means that the increase will significantly help those at the lower end of the pay scale. Amongst other things, management is proposing an increase of employee contributions to the pension scheme of 0.75% in April of this year. The Union has been given no justification for the proposed increase and we know that the scheme is generally in good health. Any increases in pension contributions should be shared by the employer and the employees. We have indicated we wish to conclude our negotiations with the BBC on pay and pensions prior to April 2009 for pay increases due in August 2009.

Over the last several months, the Union has had to intensify its campaign to continue to avoid compulsory redundancies of members at the BBC. Your representatives, the M/FoCs have continued to affirm the mandate that we will take all available steps including balloting our entire membership across the BBC if management seek to enforce compulsory redundancy on our members. Thus far, we have been successful and have been able to reach agreements avoiding compulsory redundancies. However, last night talks broke down concerning the threat of compulsory redundancies in BBC Scotland. Management there are hell bent on pressing ahead with compulsory redundancy. We offered solutions that would allow us to continue to work through the issues, as we have elsewhere. However management refused and are now intending to begin compulsory selection of NUJ members. BBC Scotland has suffered from bad managerial decisions. A boom and bust approach has been taken, initially, overspending on new premises and technology at Pacific Quay. Now our members are being asked to bear the brunt of the overspend. On the same day that the Director General talks about one of his main priorities being increasing spend on network production from the Nations, management threatens to make more than twenty television programme makers redundant. This takes the lack of joined up thinking in management to new levels. We are also facing the prospect of compulsory redundancies in BBC World Service, where management are trying to offshore production and jobs to South Asia, losing editorial control from Bush House and forcing members out of work unnecessarily.

The Union is calling on management to take a step back. However, we are also beginning the preparations for an industrial action ballot of all BBC members. We will update you on this in the next few days and let you know when to expect your ballot paper. At a time when an organisation with the scale of the BBC has guaranteed additional funding, there is no excuse for the compulsory redundancies among programme makers.

We know that when we have called on the membership to support members under threat, you have always risen to the challenge. It is important you do so again. We will keep you updated as to events as they unfold.

Regards Paul
Paul McLaughlin
National Broadcasting Organiser
NUJ

BBC World Service South Asia strike ballot

Text of a letter to BBC World Service members:

South Asia restructure - offshoring of production and staff
To all NUJ Members at World Service

Colleagues

I am writing to update you on the developing situation concerning World Service proposals to offshore jobs and production overseas in the Hindi, Urdu and Nepali services.

The NUJ has been in negotiations for some time concerning managements proposals. They form part of a wider strategy, within World Service management, to offshore more than 50% of production overseas.

The NUJ has raised concerns about this, not just from the point of view of members jobs, but also asking how editorial authority and impartiality would be maintained if the BBC shifts its editorial focus overseas, and crucially, out of Bush House where it has resided for more than seventy years.

The proposals for the South Asia services represent a significant shift away from London, both in terms of production and in terms of editorial control. During last year, we discovered that the arrangements for broadcasting within Pakistan where not sufficient to guarantee editorial control, and will remain concerned that non-BBC staff ,working for commercial limited companies overseas ( such as BBC India Ltd, etc), under questionable regulatory and political regimes, may not be able to uphold the BBC's hallmark of quality and impartiality.

During the course of our negotiations some changes where discussed however, these did provide sufficient guarantees in terms of production as outlined above, nor has there been any guarantee in terms of ruling out compulsory redundancy for staff in these areas.

Members roundly rejected managements plans in a consultative postal ballot returned by nearly 90% of members. World Service management have now decided to try and press ahead with its plans without the agreement of the staff involved or the NUJ.

In response to the this, the Union has issued notice to the BBC of our intention to ballot members, in this area, for strike action. Whilst this is something we do not do lightly, members feel it is a necessary step to protect the BBC's ability to remain impartial and to prevent management from imposing unacceptable solutions on our members.

The ballot will begin on Friday of this week and will end on Friday the 13th February 2009.

We will keep you updated. Please forward messages of support to Rajesh Priyadarshi rajeshpriyadarshi@gmail.com

Paul McLaughlin
National Broadcasting Organiser
National Union of Journalists

ITV BBC partnership

In a sign of increasing desperation, ITV is now apparently pinning its hopes on a partnership with the BBC to safeguard the future of regional news on the channel. The newly promoted director of News and Sport, Micheal Jermey has written to staff stating that the partnership idea is now 'ITV's preferred option for the future'. This is worrying news for a number of reasons; The announcement by the BBC late last year, looked like a back-of-a-fag-packet job; a poor attempt at diverting the heat over top-slicing. It follows previous initiatives such as the 3sixty media partnership which was a disaster, especially for the staff who transferred into an ill-conceived venture. The new idea now seems to be playing a part in ITV's political manoeuvring as the end game for PSB takes shape. Many staff both at the BBC and ITV are opposed to the move as ill-thought out, unworkable and counter-intuitive. At a time when many members at ITV are losing their jobs, the thought of BBC staff providing the material that ITV journalists once produced leaves a pretty sour taste in the mouth.

These pigeons are freeeezing

These pigeons are freeeezing
Originally uploaded by paulm.nuj01

A bunch of them huddled together, too cold to move. i knew how they felt.