Two further strike days planned by NUJ members at the BBC (15th and 16th November) in defence of their pensions have been suspended, as a result of major breakthroughs in their ongoing battle.

The dispute is far from over, but the impact of united action has put BBC bosses on the back foot.

BBC Director Mark Thompson infamously emailed staff prior to the initial 48-hour strike pompously declaring “there will be no further talks, no further offers”. On the contrary, the impact of the strike action led to Thompson and other BBC bosses offering new talks.

After the first strikes, they had victimised three NUJ members based with BBC World Service – giving two of them final warnings, a third being effectively sacked – for taking part in the strike overseas! The NUJ held a UK-wide meeting of Mothers/Fathers of Chapels (shop stewards) which agreed to suspend the strikes on 15/16th, in favour of negotiations, provided the victimisations were withdrawn – which they subsequently have been.

A couple of real life examples illustrate what has fuelled the burning sense of injustice which has driven BBC workers into strikes and a work-to-rule. Andy, a senior broadcast journalist, stood to get a pension of £14,900 at 60 under the existing scheme; under the BBC bosses’ new proposals he would lose £3,900 a year, a 26% cut. Even if Andy worked on ‘til 65, paying in thousands extra in contributions, he would still have his pension slashed by 13%.

Joe, a TV centre worker, stands to lose £5,000 a year – a 30% reduction. And south west of England broadcast journalist Laura would have her pension slashed from £15,500 to £13,200 a year.

Meantime, in the same BBBC but on a different planet, BBC boss Mark Byford is to get a golden handshake of £1million plus an annual pension of £400,000!

Dave Eyre, NUJ Father of the Chapel at the BBC in Glasgow and Edinburgh told me about the issues behind this trade union struggle, and the impact of workers’ initial action.

The existing BBC pension schemes are a mixture of Final Salary and Career Average. These are to be closed off to new members and the amount of any salary increases that folk who remain in the current schemes are allowed to put towards their pension will be pegged at 1 per cent. So for instance if we got a 3per cent pay rise, only 1 per cent of that would contribute to our pension.

The new offer from the BBC – called CAB 2011 – is a career average scheme that is much worse. Folk will have to pay a lot more to get back much less, losing 20% and more in the value of their pension.

The BBC suddenly seems very concerned about the deficit in the Pension Scheme. They weren’t so concerned when a surplus in the scheme in the 1990s allowed them to take a payment holiday.

There is no doubt there is a deficit. But when the BBC first came forward with their proposed cuts to our pensions they claimed the deficit is about £2bn. Since then they backtracked to claims of £1.5bn – and in figures produced for the BBC which have leaked to the NUJ, the estimates are lower still – possibly down to £1bn.
The NUJ and other BBC unions are not trying to ignore the existence of a deficit in the scheme, and we recognise it may mean people having to pay more in contributions to defend their pension levels. We are prepared to talk and negotiate on this. But we first need to know what the actual figures are. By next April the BBC Trustees will carry out their legally required formal assessment of the figures. We say wait ‘til we get the figures then. And we say the BBC must talk to the unions and the Trustees, who have been totally ignored by BBC senior managers so far. Right now we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke – and we’re not buying!

We have serious questions to put to the BBC. Why act now? Why have they decided to cut pensions in the midst of the wider financial crisis – when reports just out this week suggest Final Salary Pension Schemes are bouncing back, recovering from the earlier levels of deficit alongside the mild economic recovery – challenging the argument that the economic downturn means the death of FSPS?

If the BBC’s only concern is to address the deficit in our pension scheme, why not wait until they find out what it is!? Some NUJ members – and I am one of them – are asking if this is being done for other reasons. Are we being used as the thin end of a wedge to implement widespread pension ‘reform’ across the entire public sector, to the detriment of all who work in the public sector?

Many people look at the salary levels of Jonathan Ross and imagine BBC staff are all multi-millionaires, with gold-plated pensions. Well, we’re not! The average BBC pension is about £12,000. That’s not a poverty pension, but it’s also not a millionaire’s pension. However, that average includes massive pensions of £hundreds of thousands that a select group of senior managers do receive and will receive. A big chunk of people get much less than £12,000.
So we’re not fighting for gold-plated pensions, but for fairness in pensions.

The initial strikes had a huge impact, as anyone who regularly watches the news will have noticed. Flagship programmes like Good Morning Scotland, Newsdrive and major Gaelic service programmes were all off the air – as were Today and Newsnight UK-wide. We had an evening bulletin read by someone who normally does a jazz programme, and radio bulletins read by the Head of News.

In the aftermath of the strike, senior managers met with Mark Thompson, where they told him they got programmes out by the skin of their teeth, and they urged him to sit down and talk with the NUJ.
Today (Thurs 11th), after three previous ‘final’ offers, it now appears Mark Thompson is offering further talks if we postpone the industrial action planned for Mon 15th/Tues 16th November.

We really welcomed the support we got last week from the trade union movement and across the political spectrum. We especially welcomed support from members of other BBC unions who took the decision as a matter of conscience not to cross our pickets.

The proposal from SNP for Borthwick and Letford to stay in their roles and the SNP to take convenership roles won 15 votes, the SNP and John Letford. The Labour proposal with Richard McCready as Lord Provost won 10 votes, Labour and The Liberal Democrats. The Tories and Ian Borthwick abstained.

The people of Dundee can now look forward to an even more anti-trade union administration than the discredited former regime.

On Wednesday 28th January 2009 workers for Shaw’s construction contractors at Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire were told by their shop stewards that the new contractor, IREM, an Italian company that a part of the contract on LOR‘s HDS3 plant had been awarded to, was refusing to employ UK labour.

IREM planned to house hundreds of Italian and Portuguese workers in accommodation barges in Grimsby harbour, bussing them to and from the plant every day. They were explicit in their policy of not hiring any UK workers as contractors.

This was particularly offensive to local skilled workers against the background of Shaw’s having issued 90-day redundancy notices in mid-November, meaning that they would become redundant mid-February, whilst IREM was herding Italian workers like cattle on a boat (rumoured to be a prison ship), keeping them well away from trade-unionised UK workers.

The entire LOR workforce, from all subcontracting companies, met and voted unanimously to take immediate strike action.

The following day over a thousand construction workers from LOR, Conoco and Easington sites descended outside Lindsey Oil Refinery’s gate to picket and protest.

Thus began one of the most remarkable episodes of industrial action in the UK since the uprising in the North Sea in the late 1990′s.

Workers the length of the UK began a series of unofficial and therefore illegal actions from Grangemouth oil refinery and Longannet power station in Scotland, Sellafield and Heysham nuclear plants, Fiddlers Ferry in Widnes to the Drax power station in Yorkshire.

In just 3 or 4 days the UK‘s anti-trade union laws, some of the most oppressive in Europe, were swept aside by workers in key industrial facilities; power generation and oil refining.

Workers ignored and defied anti-union laws on balloting procedures, solidarity strikes and mass picketing, exploding the myth – perpetrated by far too many union leaders for decades – that the anti-union laws invented by the Tories and retained by New Labour are insurmountable.

The industrial action was not taking place in isolation. Across Europe workers have started to take action against the impact of the economic recession that threatens their jobs and wages and conditions.

For the left the strikes brought complications in the form of the slogan British Jobs For British Workers which although was never raised officially by the Lindsey workers became prominent from the beginning of the dispute.

Socialists have absolutely no truck with such slogans which promote division and can and have been used by the far right to promote their racist poison.

When Gordon Brown first used this phrase in November 2007 the SSP was unequivocal in condemning him for playing into the hands of the BNP and fuelling racism and xenophobia.

When the strikers used this slogan initially there is no doubt that there was a large element of throwing the slogan back in Gordon Brown’s face. Here was a situation in which UK workers were specifically being excluded from UK jobs.

But the slogan very quickly backfired; it was a gift to the BNP who had in fact been using it for a number of years and it allowed the media to deliberately and dishonestly portray the strike as overtly xenophobic and racist.

An interview conducted by Paul Mason which was used on Newsnight showed a striker making the point that “we can’t work beside them, they are coming in full companies”, referring to the segregated accommodation of the new contractors.

The BBC‘s 10 o’clock news carried a story about the strike in which Government ministers accuse the strikers of xenophobia, the Newsnight clip is cut to the striker saying we can’t work beside them.

But the strikers themselves agreed demands at their mass meetings which never gained the oxygen of media coverage, but which cut across entirely the vicious distortions of their portrayal in the press. They demanded union rights for all workers, including immigrant labour; for union facilities for the Italian workers to make them an integral part of the trade union movement here; and for the implementation of the national construction and engineering industry agreement on the rate for the job, hours of work, breaks and conditions for all working in the UK – including the Italians.

Numerous first-hand accounts showed pickets giving short shrift to the unwelcome attentions of the fascist BNP – who after all sided with the Tories against the miners’ strike, and didn’t even think fire-fighters should have the right to strike.

Strikers demonstrated a core internationalism and solidarity with fellow-workers that bodes well for the future of this movement.

Union spokespersons repeatedly stated that this strike was not about race or nationality, not against Italian or Portugese workers, but against the Italian company that was excluding local, skilled workers from even getting an interview for jobs.

Strikers rightly saw this as an attempt by EU companies to exploit EU directives and court rulings on ‘posted workers’ to undermine and break hard-won national agreements and trade union organization.

Far from being instinctively against migrant workers from Italy or Portugal, many of the strikers are themselves ‘migrants’ – forced to uproot themselves to find work in other regions of the UK or even across the EU. So they will have felt particularly bitter towards Labour’s Lord Mandelson who in effect told them to get on their bikes and trek across Europe for work – because after all the EU regulations are for the workers’ benefit!!

Seumas Milne in The Guardian called it exactly right when he described the strike as a fight for jobs in the middle of a deepening recession and a backlash against the deregulated, race-to-the-bottom neo-liberal model backed by Brown for more than a decade which produced it.

In the Glasgow Herald Professor Gregor Gall described the strike as essentially being about the underlying issues of the race to the bottom under capitalism, the drive to neo-liberalism and the European Union’s deregulatory preference.

The specific European Union legislation and court rulings that were inevitably going to ignite labour disputes at some point is the EU Posted Workers Directive and the judgements by the European Court in cases including Viking, Laval and Ruffert.

The judgements have had the effect of undermining union negotiated collective agreements which are not recognised as `universally applicable’ in the UK.

For trade unionists this strike was waiting to happen and the response of workers across the UK has been inspirational.

Linda Somerville, formerly a member of the Unite National Executive, says that there were three things that stood out;

Firstly that the strike took place in the first place she says.

We have been told repeatedly that workers in the UK are no longer interested in militant trade union action. That clearly is not the case.

Secondly, the strength and depth of the secondary, solidarity, action was immense.

Workers in key industrial locations across the UK held mass meetings and took action.

Thirdly, the strikes were all against UK trade union law which is amongst the most oppressive in Europe. The legal tools were there for employers to launch a major assault on trade unions involved in the action but the sheer size of the strikes, protests and walk outs rendered the laws impotent.

Workers at Grangemouth refinery who were very quick to come out in support of the strike have been emboldened by recently winning their pension dispute with INEOS which saw them take strike action in April 2008.

For socialists and trade unionists this dispute has been an important test, with many more to come.

The SSP has repeatedly said that the economic recession and world wide crisis of capitalism will inevitably mean that workers will be pushed into struggle.

But these struggles will be complex and contradictory with the enemies of the working class seeking to muddy the waters and cause confusion.

For that reason it is vital that we take a sober and detailed analysis of the situation and in particular understand that in Europe it is the rabidly neo liberal and pro big business measures of the European Union that seeks to drive down wages and terms and conditions across the board that organized workers are now resisting.

We need to see the essence of the issues, even when accidental slogans cloud the image. Instead of ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ the SSP from the outset of this strike wave supported the strikers in demanding the right to work, the right to an equal chance of being employed, and for defence of the wages, conditions and union rights won by hard struggle in this harsh, dangerous industry.

The SSP from day one of this strike movement called on unions in the UK to urgently seek active links with unions in Italy, Portugal and the EU, to unite in action against attempts to divide and conquer, against the use of cheaper labour and worse conditions in the bosses’ race to the bottom.

We also need to raise demands such as trade union registers of unemployed workers in the industry as the pool for employment when jobs are on offer – at least a small step forward to the days when unions had elements of control over hiring and firing in a few of the better-organised industries, such as printing. That would help counter the conscious ‘race to the bottom’ of conditions by companies at home and abroad, by use of cheap, disorganized workers to undermine the rights won by unionised workforces.

This dispute highlights the broader issue of ownership of the power and energy industry, where multi-nationals seize advantage of the de-regulated, cheap-labour EU market – championed by Blair and Brown – to maximize profits – and the SSP’s counter-proposal of public ownership and democratic control of the industry, where workers’ elected representatives would have a direct input to all aspects of employment, production and planning.

The wave of tremendously courageous strike action seems, at time of writing, to have won a major climb-down from IREM, with UK workers to get 50 per cent of the jobs, but with no lay-offs for the Italian workers, and for all to get the nationally agreed wages, hours and conditions.

This example of militant trade unionism, in defiance of the laws, will inspire others to similar defences of their jobs and right to work – starting with others in the same industry.
The job of socialists and good trade unionists is to match the courage of these strikers and seek to influence the slogans and demands of their movement in a fashion that reduces confusion, limits the opportunities for the media and reactionaries to distort workers’ aims, and to consolidate the powerful elements of workers’ unity and internationalism already on show in this current powerful movement.

The BBC are right. If they broadcast that appeal for food and medicine to be sent to Gaza it would be taking sides. The Israeli Defence force could legitimately say “We’ve gone to enormous lengths here to kill people, then you go and help to keep them alive. How do you square that with your remit to be neutral?”

So the BBC needs to look at other areas in which its ‘impartiality’ could be called into question. To start with they’ll have to scrap Crimewatch, which clearly takes the side of the murdered against the interests of murderers. Maybe they could get round this by having a new balanced Crimewatch, in which the police plea for witnesses to a crime, but then the presenter says “Next tonight – have you seen this man? Because Big Teddy and his gang are desperate to track him down and do him in for ringing us up earlier. So if you have any information please call us, where Nobby the Knife is ready to talk to you in complete confidence.”

Please donate something to the Disaster Emergency Appeal and while you are at it complain to the BBC about their deplorable decision to not screen the appeal.

The appeal in question