THE BBC backed up by the Brown government is set to ride roughshod over its workforce pushing through 2,700 job cuts, with up to 1,800 compulsory redundancies, and the sell off of the BBC TV Centre.
The BBC is to be downsized to make £2 billion in cuts and savings.
It will be showing many more old films and repeats while thousands of creative workers, members of the NUJ and Bectu are to be sacked, with original work and programme making downgraded to being a luxury item, and news coverage slashed.
Director General Mark Thompson said the plan will deliver ‘a smaller, but fitter, BBC’ in the digital age.
He made clear that the current division of labour where three journalists perform their function in the radio news service, the TV news service and on the BBC website would be savagely rationalised.
Where formerly there were three journalists, modern technology made it possible for one journalist to perform the three functions in an ‘integrated newsroom’ insists Thompson.
Thompson’s six-year-plan, called ‘Delivering Creative Future’, was encouraged by the much smaller than expected license fee settlement from the Brown government.
It includes a 10 per cent cut in TV hours and the scrapping of the plans for four new local radio stations.
There are to be 660 redundancies in BBC Vision, and 370 people will be made redundant in BBC News by 2012, with the redundancies pushed through a ‘fast track’ process.
The leader of the NUJ Jeremy Dear is on record as saying that this scale of redundancies in the BBC will make industrial action inevitable.
Gerry Morrissey, the leader of Bectu has stated, that if by 1200 hours today the BBC has not withdrawn their appeal for volunteers for redundancy to come forward, the three unions, NUJ, Bectu and Unite will organise a ballot for industrial action.
This onslaught on BBC workers is part of the Brown government’s assault on the public sector as a whole.
We have a government that bases itself on the requirements of big business and is prepared to guarantee the bankers’ deposits.
It has handed tens of billions to big business in tax cuts while it has bailed out the banks with billions of pounds of ‘aid’, without a care as to the inflationary consequences.
When it comes to the public sector it is an entirely different story.
The jobs, wages and pensions of the public sector, from the Post Office to the Civil Service, Fire Service, Local Government and the NHS are all declared by `Premier Brown to be powerful inflationary factors, all needing big cutbacks and rigorous policing.
It is high time for the public sector trade unions to come together and form an alliance to fight all job cuts, wage cuts and pension cuts.
This is the only effective policy for the trade unions to take since they are all under the most vicious attacks from the Brown government.
An injury to one is an injury to all!
The public sector trade unions must form an alliance and call an indefinite public sector general strike to beat the bosses and the government.
Such an alliance will be stronger than the government, if it has leaders who are prepared to fight to win. In fact it will be able to bring down the Brown government and go forward to a workers government in Britain that will carry out socialist policies.
Only the WRP fights for this policy. Join it today to build a new and revolutionary leadership in the working class.
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