Today (13/9) staff at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) have voted to go on strike in a row over pensions. The three trade unions involved; Unite, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) have called two 48 hour walkouts on October 5th-6th 2010 and October 19th-20th.
These dates coincide with firstly the Conservative Party conference and then the comprehensive spending review which is expected to be the most important day in possibly the entire length of this five year Parliament. Through its Parliament channel the BBC has the best access to political events of this sort and often provides the most comprehensive coverage of them. By calling strikes on these dates BECTU, and it is mainly BECTU, will undermine the BBC's ability to provide coverage of these events and in doing so make it more difficult for the British public to be kept informed of what their government is doing.
By taking such an unusual move the BECTU leadership seem to be trying to bully their members into giving up the last resort of strike action in their negotiation with BBC management. In doing so they are also sending out the message that if this government wants to keep uncomfortable stories out of the news all they need to do is intimidate the journalists who try to report them.
At this time reports that BECTU's new general secretary is a man called David Cameron cannot be confirmed
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment