BBC journalists to strike

Journalists at the BBC are to go on strike next week over compulsory redundancies, the National Union of Journalists has announced…

Journalists at the BBC are to go on strike next week over compulsory redundancies, the National Union of Journalists has announced.

The union said its members had a "long-standing commitment to the policy of no compuslory redundancies at the BBC".

It called on the broadcaster to enter urgent talks to resolve the threat of compulsory redundancies "for the small number of outstanding cases and for the reinstatement of a member dismissed in the BBC World Service".

"Industrial action will go ahead next week if the BBC fail to address these issues," the NUJ said in a statement.

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Two NUJ members at BBC Monitoring will be forced to leave their jobs next week and the week after, despite what the union said was its offer of "viable solutions".

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: "We know that there are hundreds of people who want to leave the BBC and who have been denied that chance. Yet at the same time people are now being targeted and forced out of the door. We merely want the BBC to manage the redundancy process in a humane and fair way."

Ms Stanistreet said it was not right that people were being forced into compulsory redundancy in the BBC World Service in the UK when an extra £2.2 million had been granted by the Foreign Office for the next three years to mitigate the cuts.

"Whilst journalists are bearing the impact of these cuts, the BBC is not acting to properly tackle the major problem of excessive executive pay - salaries at the top of the BBC are a staggering 21.5 times the median salary and 47 times the lowest salary. If pay was fairer, fewer jobs of programme makers and broadcasters would be at risk."