BBC news shows blacked out as journalists' strike over pensions
BBC radio and TV news programmes were disrupted today after thousands of journalists went on strike in a row over pensions.
Presenters were expected to join the action, which forced Radio 4’s flagship Today programme off the air.
Members of the National Union of Journalists began their 48-hour stoppage at midnight and plan to strike again on November 15 and 16, with threats of further disruption over Christmas.
The Today programme, which normally broadcasts from 6am to 9am, was cancelled, although there were short new bulletins on the hour.
Pre-recorded programmes filled the three-hour slot usually occupied by the popular news and current affairs programme.
Radio Five was also forced to cancel a number of live programmes and replace them with pre-recorded shows.
The early morning news programme Up All Night presented by Rhod Sharp was cancelled, with pre-made programmes including Fighting Talk and Stuart Hall’s Archive Box running in its place.
BBC News was also playing recorded shows rather than live through-the-night news bulletins.
Picket lines were mounted at BBC sites across the UK, including Bush House, Broadcasting House and TV Centre in London.
The NUJ said it expected “widespread support” from journalists for the strike and predicted that members of other unions which have accepted a deal on pensions could also refuse to cross picket lines.
NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: “NUJ members across the BBC have consistently dubbed the proposals a pensions robbery. That hasn’t changed.
“The BBC have now left members with no choice but to take action to defend their pensions.”
BBC director-general Mark Thompson sent a message to staff yesterday, saying that the NUJ membership represented around 17% of the corporation’s workforce.
He said: “I believe that the package on pension reform which we have arrived at is a fair one and that it has changed in significant and positive ways as a result both of our consultation with staff and our discussions with the unions.
“To have gone further would have been to risk damage to the quality of our services to the public and to jobs.
“The proposals we agreed with the unions some weeks ago were and will remain the BBC’s final offer.”
Mr Thompson said he did not see “what earthly good” strikes were going to achieve, adding: “They may manage to take some output off the air or lower its quality. But strikes aren’t going to reduce the pension deficit or make the need for radical pension reform go away.”
Labour MP Austin Mitchell, chairman of the NUJ’s parliamentary group, said: “When 70% of NUJ members vote to reject the offer it is clear that management have to get back round the table with the trade unions and come to a new deal.”
The British Labour party'sJohn McDonnell, convener of the Parliamentary Trade Union Co-ordinating Group, said: “The BBC pension scheme was set up to ensure a decent pension for our people in retirement. Cutting the pension is just the same as slashing people’s wages.
“Undermining the BBC pension scheme is just another part of making ordinary people pay for the economic crisis brought on by the bankers’ greed.”
