News

Many workers at the BBC are still paid poverty wages. BECTU launches campaign to End BBC Contractors Poverty Pay. UNI MEI supports the initiative and calls on affiliates to join the campaign and forward the petition to members.

Please support workers at BBC and sign the petition here: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/end-poverty-pay-for-contractor-workers-at-the-bbc

The workers affected are not BBC staff but are employed by multinational companies such as Johnson Controls International and Aramark, who turn huge profits by squeezing workplace conditions to little over the minimum allowed by law.

Low pay and heavy workloads

Many of these colleagues do not receive extra payment for working anti-social hours, such as long days, weekends and night shifts. Furthermore, regular staffing cutbacks mean they are often taking on even heavier workloads. They include catering staff, cleaners and porters. And a good number of these people were formally employed by the BBC before they were discarded in the name of `contracting out'.

Following pressure from BECTU, the BBC has promised to ensure that salaries for these workers are increased when new contracts are tendered, but this is simply too late for those who find it impossible to make ends meet today.