BBC Wales staff to strike over planned redundancies

Staff at BBC Wales are to hold a 24-hour strike over the 26 and 27 August, in protest over planned compulsory redundancies.

The strike will begin at 3pm on Friday 26 and continue in to Saturday.

Organised by members of the BECTU broadcast union, the industrial action is a response the jobs of four editors and one assistant producer who are due to be made redundant on the 31 August.

The union, which is in talks with BBC Wales management again today (18 August), says the corporation should be doing more to redeploy the staff.

BECTU Wales official David Donovan told Journalism.co.uk the union was not demanding the compulsory redundancies be abandoned entirely by management, but feels the BBC should provide the five members at risk with a six-week period of training or attachment, after which further talks would be held about their positions.

The union has been in talk over the positions since it was first notified of the planned redundancies last September. Donovan said today that the BBC's position still does "not meet the aspirations of the members or ourselves".

"There are suitable vacancies available at the BBC that require additional training, which should be open to our members.

Donovan said the union was still in talks at this late stage with the hope of reaching a resolution, but said: "It is regrettable but at this moment I can not see that a resolution is possible.

"We are required to give the BBC seven-days notification of the strike and so we have gone ahead and made the announcement.

"The union members need to see that there is a commitment from the union."

A spokesperson for BBC Wales said: "It is very unfortunate that BECTU has decided to take this action considering BBC Wales' good record of successfully redeploying as many staff as possible."

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