Posted on 05/11/2005 4:50:27 PM PDT by MRMEAN
LONDON (Reuters) - BBC journalists and other employees have voted to go on strike to protest the publicly funded broadcaster's plans to cut about 20 percent of its workforce under Director General Mark Thompson.
About 84 percent of BBC employees represented by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted for the strike, General Secretary Jeremy Dear said on Wednesday.
"This result is a reflection of the huge anger at the scale and impact of Mark Thompson's cuts," he said. The NUJ will meet Amicus and BECTU, two other unions representing BBC employees, on Thursday to decide when to strike.
The NUJ said the unions "will renew their call for the BBC to drop its opposition to meaningful negotiations with the unions, in a last-ditch bid to avoid the need for strike action."
Over the next three years, the BBC plans to axe about 4,000 jobs from a workforce of 21,000 to save about 355 million pounds.
"Given the scale of the changes that the BBC needs to make, and that the unions have not allowed us to talk to them in order to address their concerns, we are not surprised by the ballot result, but we are disappointed because we would prefer to continue constructive discussions with them," a BBC spokesman said.
Under industrial relations legislation, which requires unions to give advance notice of any action, BECTU said the earliest date for action would be May 20.
About 77 percent of BECTU members voted in favour of striking, but turnout was lower than 50 percent. A vote tally was not immediately available from Amicus.
There is a simple solution to all of these problems: ABOLISH THE BBC!!! (and NPR, and PBS)
Why should any members of any public be forced to pay into the pockets of media outlets they don't support, endorse, or agree with? Let all these leftists try to survive in the marketplace instead of taking our tax money (pounds, dollars, whatever) at gunpoint (which is what these governments are doing). I'm not a strict libertarian, there are government functions I would argue in favor of that libertarians do not accept, but certainly there's no good reason for any goverment to tax everyone to pay for entities like the BBC.
Umm, will they refund their license fees pro-rated for the duration of the strike?
" Let all these leftists try to survive in the marketplace instead of taking our tax money"
The BBC provides a lot of functions that simply are not provided in a 'free marketplace' media, that's the entire point. Your argument could legitimately apply to the the mainstream tv and radio channels.
Like how Ludwig van Beethoven was supported. Yeah right.
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