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S. E. A. Statements

SEA backs BBC strikers

Friday 20th May 2005

The Socialist Environmental Alliance calls on all trade unionists and on the wider public to show their support for the BBC workers taking strike action on Monday.

The strike is in protest at the decision of BBC bosses to axe thousands of jobs and privatise key parts of the corporation.

Under the plan, 19 percent of staff are to go. So, 81 percent of the existing workforce will be required to carry out 100 percent of the work---and with lower budgets. Inevitably, corners will be cut. Quality will suffer in news, comedy, drama and in children's and other programming.

The strike is not just about jobs and conditions but about the service to the public.

The issue should be seen in the context of the wide-ranging assaults on the public sector as a whole. Across health, education, water and the civil service, workers face job losses and cut-backs in resources. The current funding crisis in education is another example. The SEA believes that there should be far greater coordination in resisting these attacks. 

Our members and supporters are arguing within the union movement for a one-day strike across the entire public sector to make it plain that we won't tolerate a slow death from a thousand New Labour cuts.

If we fight these issues one at a time, we will be picked off one by one. The real agenda here is privatisation. The ideologues of New Labour---Thatcherites in sharper suits---want to subject the BBC to the "discipline" of the market, just as they are using contracting out and PFI to privatise health and education piece by piece. The complicity of the main local parties in this process shouldn't be forgotten, either.

The present round of cuts won't directly affect Radio Foyle. The Foyle workers will be on strike in support of their colleagues in Belfast and across the water and in defence of programme quality. They also know that if management gets away with the current cuts, Foyle won't escape next time.

The immediate priority is to demonstrate support for the strike. We urge trade unionists and the public generally to show support by showing up on the picket lines at Ormeau Avenue in Belfast and Northland Avenue in Derry.





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