Birmingham and Coventry National Union of Journalists

Support Rally - BBC Strikers Monday 18 February
9:00 am to 10:00 am
The Mailbox
Birmingham City Centre
B1 1AY

[Non BBC workers, ask your workplace Chapel to delegate two/three members to attend rally, if they can, any Freelance members not working, please make the effort. If you cannot be there, send messages of Solidarity for the strikers to: <michele.paduano@bbc.co.uk>]

5 MPs Say BBC Strike Inevitable and Justified, if Bosses Won't Talk
Austin Mitchell, Jonathan  Edwards, John McDonnell, Alan  Meale, Virendra Sharma, Dennis Skinner, have declared their support for strike action.

The NUJ is now battling to save jobs at BBC Scotland, Newsbeat, Five Live, at the Big Screens, Asian Network and the World Service which are due to go within months. In all, the BBC plans to cut 2,000 jobs.The BBC has already lost more than 7,000 jobs since 2004.

"NUJ members across the BBC cannot believe why their management is failing to redeploy colleagues at risk – at the very same time as advertising job vacancies. It is a monumental waste of talent and experience. Paying needless redundancies is a waste of public money. This action could easily be avoided. This not just about self-interest. BBC journalists care deeply about the quality of programming and the corporation's duty as a public service broadcaster. That is why so many are already working way beyond their contracted hours and are 'acting up' without financial reward, and why stress levels across the BBC are at an all-time high."


Early Day Motion 1071: BBC Redundancies
That this House is concerned that the BBC is refusing to enter into meaningful negotiations with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) on behalf of its members and is instead insisting on compulsory redundancies of BBC journalists rather than the redeployment of posts under an agreed scheme as requested by the NUJ;

    notes that despite extensive efforts by NUJ representatives and officials, a number of workers across BBC Scotland, the Asian Network, Newsbeat, News, Five Live, the Big Screens, the World Service and English Regions still risk compulsory redundancy as part of the Delivering Quality First programme which plans more than 2,000 job losses across the corporation;

    believes that in externally advertising six-month contracts to journalists who do not work for the corporation, at the same time as failing to secure redeployment opportunities for workers at risk of compulsory redundancy,

    some managers, such as those at BBC Scotland are failing to uphold key aspects of the redeployment agreement, let alone the spirit of the deal;

   and therefore calls on the BBC to enter into genuine and meaningful negotiations with the NUJ as a matter of urgency in order to resolve this dispute and considers that failing that strike action on 18 February 2013 by NUJ members in the BBC would be both inevitable and justified.

Sponsors: Austin Mitchell, Jonathan  Edwards, John McDonnell, Alan  Meale, Virendra Sharma, Dennis Skinner, have declared their support for strike action.          House of Commons: 12/02/2013