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UNI MEI supports BECTU and NUJ on strike at the BBC about excessive workloads which are causing increasing reports of stress, bullying and harassment.

The BBC unions will go on an 12-hour strike from midday today and will affect BBC sites UK wide. With the strike BBC workers protest against excessive workloads which are causing increasing reports of stress, bullying and harassment. The excessive workloads are the result of close to 1350 job cuts since the launch of Delivering Quality First (DQF). The BBC's misnamed policy is intended to address the monumental impact of a 6-year freeze in licence fee income made worse by the decision to also fund the World Service and S4C.

"Our members are suffering because the BBC thinks it can deliver the same levels of output with many fewer staff. The reality is that excessive workloads caused by massive job cuts are already taking their toll with staff reporting more stress, more bullying and more harassment. The BBC has a duty of care which it is not exercising currently and it is great pity that strike action is needed to make senior managers take the issues seriously," said BECTU General Secretary and UNI MEI President , Gerry Morrissey.

The unions have also warned that quality is being affected by the current pressures and both organisations believe that if the quality of BBC declines that this will only encourage the BBC's critics when discussions about the renewal of the BBC's Charter get underway in the run up to 2017.

The joint unions have called for a six-month moratorium on job cuts to allow for a thorough review of the problems in the workplace being caused by DQF. To date the BBC has refused to suspend the cuts programme to allow the review to take place.

“Unions and workers in broadcasting across Europe express their support for colleagues at the BBC”, said EURO-MEI President William Maunier. “The financial sustainability and hence the quality of public service broadcasting is under constant threat in many European countries. We are very much worried about the developments at the BBC. The first to pay the price are workers, but society as a whole risks to lose a pillar of democracy if the structural cuts threaten the broadcasters ability to fulfill their public service mission ”, he added.

You can find more information on the strike at the BBC here:



Open letter to BECTU members from Gerry Morrissey, BECTU General Secretary



BECTU home page