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Strike at the BBC?

Henk Ruyssenaars + The Scotsman | 11.07.2006 16:46 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | World

It was revealed last week that director-general Mark Thompson saw his pay packet rise by £160,000, from £459,000 to £619,000. Adding insult to injury is the executive board's greed in swallowing inflated pay rises of between 10 and 30 per cent. BECTU members will vote for industrial action."


10,000 BBC staff to be balloted for strike as pay dispute worsens

It is possible. When all TV screens go black in England, maybe the spell breaks. And the Brits wake up to the global massacre their 'managers' are guilty of. The horrible holocaust which the British taxpayer and others in the 'Coalition of the Killing' have to pay billions for. Whether they want to or not.

FPF-intro - July 11, 2006 - The spell by the Tube is disastrous. The brainwashing effect likewise. Take the French newspapers which had the football mass psychosis whipped to the front pages: 'France is Crying!' Which is normal in the circles where heads are similar to footballs: empty on the inside. None of those brain dead sports fundamentalists cried out loud for all the death and destruction globally going on. No tears were shed for the millions of dead, bombed, DU radiated, tortured, jailed, and otherwise abused people, which are the victims of the same economic system that made 1.5 billion people watch football on TV. Lobotomized by a system and a ball.

But there is a ray of hope, a form of wishful thinking. Most of the interested people by now know that the BBC two decades ago openly started servicing the goals of the people managing England, who also put their front man at the top, Michael Grade. - [ http://tinyurl.com/l687f] - Within short honest journalism at the BBC was snuffed, like the life of Dr. Kelly who appears to have been suicided by what he called 'the dark forces' -  http://tinyurl.com/2p2sb - because he was willing to tell something to a BBC journalist who was trying be honest. The same 'dark forces' had the BBC produce and globally distribute - wrecking their credibility by it - TWO percent dissent concerning the genocides, the illegal wars. The BBC advocated the wars. Nothing else. And they are guilty like the other propagandists.

WALK OUT ON THE KILLERS

What people in the rest of the world now hope for, is that the people working at the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC finally come to their senses. Show that they have a real spine on the place where many now think they have cooked spaghetti. Show how brave they are, and walk out on the killers. The fact that those apparently already emptied the pension funds (like Enron) and want to fire thousands of them could be the trigger to make the BBC journalists and producers finally react against what has happened to the BBC, and them.

So, maybe the fact does it, that the Group's representatives at the treacherous BBC top keep slobbering from the trough, while the curbed cattle get's only 2.6% in a so called 'raise' of their salaries. (Inflation is much higher, so they end up with nothing anyhow). Because it is known that BBC salaries normally are nothing to write home about: before it was the status that did it. Which the BBC looses faster than quick with its omissions and dishonesty. Now the NNC's warmongers and gatekeepers need more money, to ease the shame of their criminal collaboration. But one can't silence a bad conscience with it: the blood sticks.

BRING BLAIR AND HIS WAR CRIMINALS DOWN

Since the Americans in most cases only have woken up when they got problems with the high prices of the gasoline, it may be the clobbering necessary to bring Blair and his war criminals down and even to Court when all TV screens go black. If they have any decency left, the the BBC staff walks out on those warmongers at the top - those malignant and misguided people advocating guided missiles and supporting war against human beings.

The sooner the BBC staff walks out, the more lives they save.

HR

10,000 BBC staff to be balloted for strike as pay dispute worsens

by Alan Jones

The Scotsman - Tuesday 11 July 2006 - THE BBC is facing a series of strikes next month by broadcasting workers and journalists in a bitter pay and pensions dispute after union leaders yesterday decided to ballot on industrial action.

About 10,000 workers will vote later this month, with union officials expecting a big "yes" vote which could lead to walkouts from mid-August.

Leaders of BECTU, the National Union of Journalists and Amicus quickly made the ballot decision yesterday after being inundated with e-mails from staff angry at last Friday's announcement of major pay rises for executives while workers were being offered 2.6 per cent.

Any strikes would be likely to hit radio and television news shows the hardest, BECTU officials said, but live daytime television could also be badly affected.

Gerry Morrissey, assistant general secretary of BECTU, said: "The BBC's planned changes to pensions and its offer to staff on pay in no way compensates for their contribution over the last 12 months. Management have been extremely hypocritical in accepting huge pay rises for themselves."

TAKE A PAY CUT AND TO WORK LONGER

The BBC is planning changes to its pension scheme, including closing its final-salary scheme to new entrants, which has also angered workers.

BECTU official Luke Crawley added: "BECTU members are angry at the contempt shown to them by the BBC - asking them to take a pay cut and to work longer is insulting. Adding insult to injury is the executive board's greed in swallowing inflated pay rises of between 10 and 30 per cent. BECTU members will vote for industrial action."

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: "BBC managers cannot be surprised by the immense anger with which their actions have been met by hard-working staff.

"The fact that money can be found to reward managers who have axed jobs, cut programme budgets and presided over a pensions fiasco, but cannot be found to save vital jobs in current affairs, shows where the current BBC management's priorities lie.

"Their shame-faced refusal to negotiate simply adds to the sense that there is one law for fat-cat bosses and another for dedicated BBC staff."

BBC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL GRADE DEFENDED PAY RISES FOR EXECUTIVES YESTERDAY, SAYING THAT SENIOR STAFF SHOULD NOT BE "PUNISHED FOR THEIR LOYALTY" WHEN THEY COULD EARN FAR MORE IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR.

He dismissed the controversy over the latest packages as an "annual ritual" obsession with pay packets.

It was revealed last week that director-general Mark Thompson saw his pay packet rise by £160,000, from £459,000 to £619,000.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Grade said: "We made it very clear last year that the senior executives at the BBC, each and every single one of them, could earn a lot more money by leaving the BBC and working for the private sector and had fallen well below the BBC's pay policy, which is to pay the market median.

"We said we were going to spend the next two years - last year and this year - correcting them and getting them into line. That's exactly what we've done."

He added: "This is a kind of an annual ritual where people get obsessed with people's pay. It is a lot of money, but it's not as much as they could all be earning elsewhere. Pretty well everybody in the BBC works for less than they could earn in the private sector."

Formal seven-day notice of strike ballots will be sent to the BBC by 13 July, although the unions have not ruled out further discussions with management, or DG Mark Thompson.

Luke Crawley, chief negotiator on behalf of the joint unions at the corporation, said: "If we go out on strike we will be hitting every-day programmes, the Today programme on Radio 4, the Six O'Clock News and the Ten O'Clock News on TV."

A one-day strike last year by the unions, who represent journalists along with producers and researchers, took all the news programmes off the air, with live day-time television also severely affected. Soap operas and other pre-recorded shows are less likely to be hit because they are pre-recorded five or six weeks in advance.

[andend] - Article Url.:  http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1007792006


RELATED:
MEDIALENS - ALERT: BLAMING THE VICTIM IN GAZA - Url.:  http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

FPF & BBC: BLAIR'S BIASED BROADCASTING CORP. -  http://tinyurl.com/naqhd

TEARS FOR THE DEAD? - Iraq Civilians: 50,000 Dead-But Who's Counting? - Url.:  http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-resende110706.htm

* THE BBC SUPPORTS THIS - RELATED LINKS - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/gkgrb

* ROME TRIBUNAL ON WAR CRIMES AND MEDIA: Held Guilty of Deception - The tribunal said mainstream media reportage on Iraq also violated article six of the Nuremberg Tribunal (set up to try Nazi crimes) which states: "Leaders, organisers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes (crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity) are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such a plan." - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/68jws

* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.:  http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
 http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
 fpf@chello.nl

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Henk Ruyssenaars + The Scotsman
- e-mail: fpf@chello.nl
- Homepage: http://tinyurl.com/66dmo

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