BBC Lay Reps blog

On my patch:

DEC - Children’s

6 BECTU and NUJ Members in the Children’s Education Unit have been issued with compulsory redundancy notices despite the fact that the trawl for volunteers across Children’s was over subscribed. As a result Children’s Education Unit went on strike on July 10^th. The BBC is risking the loss of 6 extremely experienced and talented staff – award winners included. BECTU is continuing the battle against the extraordinarily regressive and unimaginative attitude these actions represent within Children’s management.

F&L Acting Up

Management have started boards for those acting up for appointment to substantive posts. The boarding process, after some members have been acting up for years, is, unsurprisingly, causing an increase in personal case work in this area. BECTU are in talks with management about how to prevent the same acting up chaos occurring again.

JAM

BECTU are still in negotiation with the aim of preventing any compulsory redundancies.

I&A

Two items in dispute at present:

The first issue is the taking of 10 hours for an 11.5 hour shift within Broadcast Press Cuttings. I&A’s intention is to apply normal BBC policy to take 11.5 hours for an 11.5 hour shift. BECTU’s suggested compromise was to take 40 hours for a 4 consecutive shifts between a Saturday – Friday period with all other shifts to be taken as 11.5 or 8 for a day shift. BECTU is waiting to see whether or not this dispute is to go to national conference.

The second is due to management wanting to give some of their staff the opportunity to train by taking on more responsibilities. Of course BECTU members’ worry is that this is just acting up by any other name and without any extra pay. Management were supposed to send BECTU documentation on the proposals before the subsequent LLM. When the documentation never materialized and the relevant management didn’t turn up to the next LLM BECTU put the matter into dispute.

BBC Elstree

After the workload for script editors and the problems of late scripts for all those working on the programme having been a standing item on LLM agendas for nearly 2 years management have decided upon a restructure of the script process on the programme. So far members have welcomed the changes which, in theory, bring in a more streamlined script process with script editors only expected to work on one week’s block of scripts at any one time. Everyone is hoping that this time the process will work.

BBC Rep’s guide

I completed The BBC Reps Guide ready for a final edit by Helen Ryan the BBC Division new Supervisory Official. The guide should be published in the near future for all trained reps to use to update the knowledge and as an aid to memoir in BBC Procedure.

Nursery Campaign

This campaign has not achieved the desired result: the maintenance all of the BBC’s remaining nurseries. Over 3000 members of BECTU and the NUJ signed the online petitions which were presented to Director General Mark Thompson by BBC staff that use the nurseries accompanied by their children. Unfortunately, whilst accepting the petition itself, Mark Thompson appears to have taken no notice of it whatsoever.

The decision to close the nurseries was made last November without any consultation with the members of staff that use them or staff that would have liked to have used them. However, via the campaign itself, BECTU at least showed its membership that it cares about all the issues involved with their working lives even those issues that are not strictly at the hard, pay and redundancy end, of industrial relations.

I was proud to be a part of the campaign and grateful for all the support I received both from members, with and without children themselves and from BECTU officials and staff at Head Office. I was particularly grateful to those who, from experience, thought the
campaign had little chance of success but nevertheless put themselves out to help.

Recruiting

I have been recruiting in Birmingham, I&A, BBC Cardiff and Elstree – including raising freelancers’ awareness of the advantages of collective bargaining and so signing BECTU’s Freelance Petition.

Recruiting Activists

Due to a lack of time this has not been a successful time for recruiting activists – must try harder… further cuts / industrial action at the BBC allowing! I do have some potential activists who need following up.

Meetings

Below is a list of the formal meetings attended:

Date	Activity	Location
07/01/07	NEC	BECTU Head Office
09/01/07	Nursery campaign meeting	Elstree
09/01/07	Lobby for licence fee	Parliament
15/01/07	DMNC	BECTU Head office
16/01/07	N&R SDC	BECTU Head office
17/01/07	BBC Division	BECTU Head office
18/01/07	BBC Disabled Staff Forum	Broadcasting House
22/01/07	Stress at Work Course	BECTU Head office
26/01/07	Freelance Petition Day	Elstree
03/02/07	GEC	BECTU Head office
05/02/07	Nursery Campaign Visit	Richford Street
12/02/07	Nursery Campaign Visit	Woodlands
15/02/07	DSF	BC
16/02/07	Nursery Campaign Visit	Woodlands
18/02/07	NEC	BECTU Head Office
19/02/07	Recruiting Birmingham	Birmingham
20/02/07	Nursery Campaign	Elstree
21/02/07	Nursery Campaign	Woodlands
22/02/07	BBC Childrens VFM / Desktop Editing	Media Centre / BBC Television Centre
27/02/07	Nursery Campaign and Cardiff Branch Committee meeting	BBC Cardiff
1/03/07	Elstree LLM	BBC Elstree
1/03/07	Nursery Petition	BBC Elstree
05/03/07	Nursery Petition	BBC Elstree
08/03/07	DSF event on comedy anddisability	BBC White City
13/03/07	N&R	BECTU Head Office
14/03/07	BBC Division	BECTU Head Office
15/03/07	Stress Course	BECTU Head Office
16/03/07	Q&A Mark Thompson	BBC Media Centre
20/03/07	Freelance Campaign andrecruiting.	BBC Bristol
21/03/07	Handed In Petition withcampaigners to Mark Thompson	Broadcasting House
22/03/07	English Regions DLM	Mailbox Birmingham
23/03/07	Vision DLM VFM	BBC Television Centre
28/03/07	I&A Pervale	Broadcast Centre
31/03/07	EDC	BECTU Head Office
01/04/07	NEC	BECTU Head Office
05/04/07	Move On Up for disabledworker: working party	RNIB
11/04/07	I&A LLM	Broadcast Centre W12
13/04/07	Committee Meeting recruitment	Cardiff
16/04.07	BBC Disability AwarenessCourse focus group	BBC Marylebone High Street
19/04/07	BBC Disabled Staff Forum	Broadcast Centre W12
25/04/07	Technology Day Bristol	Bristol
27/04/07	Pre-conference NEC	Bournemouth
28/04/07	BECTU Conference	Bournemouth
29/04/07	BBC Divisional Conference	Bournemouth
09/05/07	I&A LLM	Broadcast Centre
12/05/07	TUDA AGM	All Saints Road
13/05/07	NEC	BECTU Head Office
14/05/07	JAM meeting	White City London W12
18/05/07	Recruiting I&A	Windmill Road
21/05/07	Production SDC	BECTU Head Office
22/05/07	Elstree and BorehamwoodCouncil Filming eveningmeeting	Council Offices Elstree with Martin Spence AGS
23/05/07	TUC Disability Conference	TUC Congress House London
24/05/07	TUC Disability Conference	TUC Congress House London
31/05/07	Elstree LLM	BBC Elstree
06/06/07	BBC Division	BECTU Head office
07/06/07	Recruiting I&A	BBC Television Centre
13/06/07	Recruiting I&A	BBC Broadcast Centre
15/06/07	JAM	White City
18/06/07	I&A Dispute Procedure	Broadcast Centre
18/06/07	Move On Up	TUC
19/06/07	Diversity Board	Director General Office
20/06/07	I&A LLM	BBC Broadcast Centre
20/06/07	Diversity NJC	BBC Media Centre
21/06/07	BBC DSF	BBC Broadcast Centre
24/06/07	NEC	BECTU Head Office
28/06/07	Recruiting	Cardiff
29/06/07	Recruiting	Cardiff
03/07/07	NJC	BBC Media Centre London W12
04/07/07	Members Meeting BBC JAM	BBC White City
05/07/07	BBC South	BBC Southampton
07/07/07	F&GP	BECTU Head Office
10/07/07	Strike CBBC	BBC Television Centre
11/07/07	I&A LLM	BBC Broadcast Centre W12

Members’ cases

1 not renewal of contract – different job / contract offered with no break in service

1 Disability discrimination – had to past to another lay rep as I became a material witness!

7 Maternity or Flexible working cases – 5 withdrew, 1 reached a compromise, 1 ongoing

1 performance review – ongoing 1 disciplinary – thrown out

5 acting up cases – all potentially ongoing depending on boards / other contract offers

1 Bullying and Harassment / Disability Discrimination – ongoing

2 Ill health – both compromise agreements

1 early retirement.

1 Pay/Grading - ongoing

4 redundancy appeals – ongoing

Plans For Next Six Months

I would really like to do more recruiting both in terms of activists and members – BBC management action this autumn permitting!