BBC redundancies placed on hold

Compulsory redundancies at the BBC have been put on hold until at least April, following discussions between BBC Director-General Mark Thompson and the three unions concerned.

Senior union officials met the BBC Director-General yesterday, January 12, to review the progress of local negotiations on a plan to cut more than 3,000 posts across the Corporation.

At the meeting Mr Thompson agreed that talks, originally destined to finish last December, should be extended until April 1, with managers under an obligation to "redouble" their efforts to minimise compulsory redundancies.

The unions, Bectu, Amicus, and the NUJ, pledged to fight for all job cuts to be voluntarily in a campaign last year, which culminated in a one-day stoppage on May 23.

Following the strike, unions reached an agreement, brokered by government conciliation service ACAS, under which detailed discussions on the planned job cuts were conducted at local level throughout the latter half of 2005.

However, despite efforts by union representatives and managers to achieve headcount reductions by voluntary means only, more than 200 staff still faced compulsory redundancy when Bectu, NUJ, and Amicus met Thompson on Thursday.

At the meeting with the BBC Director-General the union delegation outlined their opposition to compulsory redundancies, and their willingness to resist them with further strike action if necessary.

More than 90% of the planned job cuts had already been achieved through volunteers and natural wastage, said the unions, and the residue was, proportionately, so small that the BBC should be willing to re-visit the local discussions and come up with a solution which avoided compulsory redundancies.

Thompson refused to rule out the possibility of some job cuts ultimately being compulsory, but agreed to another round of talks in areas which had not achieved their cuts targets entirely through voluntary means.

In return, the unions agreed to a temporary suspension of a 1998 agreement which gives extended notice to staff facing redundancy. This will allow the BBC to issue three months' notice of redundancy to staff affected by the cuts on April 1 this year, in keeping with a promise from management after last year's strike that nobody would be made compulsorily redundant until July 1 2006.

Another summit meeting with the Director-General is expected later in the year.

(GB)