From 4am this morning, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) pickets were out in force at MediaCityUK, protesting about compulsory redundancies at the BBC, which will affect departments that have moved to Salford over the last few years.
"We're on strike today to defend quality services and jobs at the BBC" the NUJ's Keith Murray told Salford Star "The BBC is being attacked from all sides, and the BBC management is not standing up for it, so it's left to staff and union members like us to defend the BBC because frankly no-one else is doing it.
"In Salford there's hundreds of jobs under threat" he added "Our particular beef at the moment is with compulsory redundancies. There is no need for the BBC to make anyone compulsorily redundant, as there is enough turnover of staff, and enough people who want to leave the BBC. Instead of making compulsory redundancies they should just move existing staff around."
Immediately under threat are jobs at Five Live but, with the BBC looking to lose 2000 jobs over the next five years, staff in all departments are under threat. In Salford these are Knowledge and Learning, Children's, Sport, Future Media, North West Tonight and BBC Radio Manchester.
Yet when the BBC moved to MediaCityUK there were supposed to be jobs for local people and a future in the media for local young people.
"This is what we worry about" said Keith "In terms of local people getting jobs here, to be brutally honest it's cleaning jobs, it's catering jobs, it's not the sort of highly skilled journalistic jobs that the area was promised when Media City was first muted. If the BBC is making existing members of staff compulsorily redundant that means in terms of taking on anyone who lives locally into those jobs, it's an incredibly slim chance. Why would they be taking people on whilst sacking people?"
Salford trade unionists from other sectors were also out supporting BBC staff today…
"We've had some fantastic support from Salford trade unionists" Keith explained "Today it's about jobs for the BBC but we know that Greater Manchester Police are making cuts, we know that there are cuts and savings in the education service in Salford, and we know there are cuts and savings to be made in the health service in Salford. This is just a start. We are all standing together - because if we don't, we don't have a hope in hell of winning."
If today's action doesn't make the BBC change its mind on compulsory redundancies, expect more strike action in the future…
Meanwhile, an `early day motion' was tabled at the House of Commons, that...
"That this House is concerned that the BBC is refusing to enter into meaningful negotiations with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) on behalf of its members and is instead insisting on compulsory redundancies of BBC journalists rather than the redeployment of posts under an agreed scheme as requested by the NUJ… and therefore calls on the BBC to enter into genuine and meaningful negotiations with the NUJ as a matter of urgency in order to resolve this dispute" (see here for full motion)
Not one Salford MP – Hazel Blears, Barbara Keeley or Graham Stringer – supported the motion…
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