BBC staff to ballot for strike over jobs row

Thousands of BBC employees are to be balloted for industrial action over increased workload and rising levels of stress as a result of jobs and spending cuts, unions have announced.

Britain’s media and entertainment trade union Bectu, the country’s largest union Unite and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) will ballot members in the coming weeks on whether to launch a joint strike.

Voting papers are expected to be sent out on March 6, with the result due later next month.

Gerry Morrissey, Bectu’s general secretary, said, “We would prefer to have a sensible conversation with BBC management about the damage done in the first year of these cuts, but instead we’ve had to turn up the pressure to protect thousands of members from over-work, bullying and stress.”

The broadcaster is axing about 2,000 jobs over five years as part of its Delivering Quality First cost-cutting drive.

NUJ members staged a day-long strike on February 18 over compulsory redundancies across the corporation including BBC Scotland, BBC World and BBC’s Asian Network.