The NUJ has rejected as “divisive” the criteria being used by the BBC to cut 37 producer jobs from its specialist factual department, writes Wale Azeez.
The union will call on the broadcaster to widen the criteria for the redundancies to include assistant producers in a meeting on 13 August.
The BBC has asked the NUJ to agree to a “selection for retention” policy, which the union has called “a divisive way for senior management to cherry-pick which of their friends will keep their jobs.”
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“Effectively, you have to apply for your old job back. And it’s not done on any objective criteria,” a union source said.
“The management effectively has carte blanche to promise jobs to whoever they want, and the unions oppose this because it’s degrading and because it’s not transparent.”
Twenty-five jobs will go in London and 12 in Bristol. So far, seven out of a possible 16 Londonbased producers have accepted voluntary redundancy, while another nine producers’ applications have been rejected.
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The union wants voluntary redundancy extended to include assistant producer positions.
“We want them to have a wider trawl within the department, because the initial one was only for people at the producer level,” an NUJ official said.
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