We’ve got our eyes on you
Ever vigilant, the NUJ is keeping a check on the effects of BBC management’s persistent cost-cutting measures. Thousands of jobs are going in repeated payroll cuts, but there can be more at stake than just our jobs. In two recent cases, managers have tried to make changes that could imperil the quality of BBC journalism. In both, the unions have mounted resistance, to protect both jobs and the service we provide.
Offshore industry
The BBC World Service is trying to offshore programme making to South Asia, as ARJUM WAJID reports
BBC WORLD Service staff from the South Asia region and the English language newsroom at Bush House in central London have launched a union campaign to defend jobs and editorial integrity. It was inspired by management’s money-saving misadventure in offshoring an increasing amount of programming to the Indian sub-continent — dismantling a broadcasting service that is the envy of the world. Even those most sceptical about union membership have been turned into highly motivated activists.
The plan to move programmes and staff overseas is being carried through by Nigel Chapman, director of the World Service. There has been no announcement, let alone consultation, for a process that will change the character of the World Service forever and affect the working and family lives of staff.
Staff in the Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Nepali, Tamil and Sinhala services were largely oblivious to what was in store. As Rajesh Priyadarshi, a senior producer with Hindi section put it: “We sleepwalked into it without realising where we were going.”
The insidious process began three years ago with a 30-minute section of the daily current affairs programme being produced in the Delhi office instead of Bush House. Then the night news bulletins were transferred to Delhi and, for over a year, two nighttime current affairs programmes have been prepared and presented from Delhi. The Hindi online service has also gradually been transferred to Delhi, with some colleagues being sent on attachment and some on new contracts.
It was not until the end of last year that it dawned on the Hindis and other colleagues in the South Asian region that these apparently insignificant and casually introduced changes were the forebears of more far-reaching structural changes.
For the Urdu service covering Pakistan, a new bureau in Islamabad was completed in November 2006, with three radio studios, a TV studio and 30 workstations. As an internal management memo put it, “the new facility will significantly enhance the programme possibilities allowing more content to be produced and presented from Pakistan”. And yet until recently there were no satisfactory answers to NUJ’s repeated inquiries about the changes being introduced. For instance, part of the flagship current affairs programme was often being produced and presented from Islamabad. Urdu Online was also being partly produced in Pakistan. When asked about the future, local management’s reply was that the plans for the Urdu section were still being considered by senior management.
By early last year the hourly Urdu FM news bulletin which was launched in 2004 and produced and presented from London was transferred to Islamabad. The FM editor was sent from London and the rest of the production team was recruited in Pakistan.
There were problems over this bulletin due to legal wrangles between the BBC and Pakistan’s media regulatory body PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) and later because of the media clampdown by the President Pervez Musharraf when he introduced a state of emergency late last year.
But the most alarming aspect of the moves has only recently come to light. Under Indian and Pakistani laws foreign media companies must broadcast through a local outlet. The BBC’s deal with its partner station in Pakistan, Mast FM 103, could make its broadcasts of BBC bulletins subject to PEMRA’s regulatory standards, which would not be acceptable in the UK.
The BBC denies this, and no incident has come to light in which the Urdu FM bulletin has actually been interfered with, but BBC journalists are worried that a dangerous principle may have been established. Their concern is that the BBC could be handing over its editorial control to a dictatorial regime. This shocking possibility set the alarm bells ringing well beyond South Asia. The World Service newsroom chapel of the NUJ raised the issue not only with Nigel Chapman but also with Director-General Mark Thompson and the BBC Trust.
Meanwhile the BBC has been busy setting up its own local private companies in India and Pakistan. These, of course, would need to be staffed, and the BBC had it in mind to recruit locally — and at local rates. This was to be repeated in Nepal and beyond.
Late last year Hindi service staff in London were told that 80 per cent of its transmission would be produced and presented from Delhi. Urdu service staff learnt in April 2008 that 50 per cent of their operation was moving to Islamabad. Some 50 staff will face a stark choice: take redundancy or relocate their families to India, Pakistan or Nepal and accept downgraded pay and conditions.
What South Asian staff were not aware of until they started their own battle was that several other BBC language services had already been offshored and the same fate could be awaiting the rest. Galvanised by the realisation that this could be the beginning of the end for the World Service as it has been known and respected for 60 years, NUJ and BECTU members from South Asian service and the Bush House newsroom have joined forces and launched a campaign to save the World Service.
Arjum Wajid works for the BBC Urdu service
‘If I wanted to drive a van for a living I would work for DHL’
KEITH MURRAY tells how unions stopped the BBC introducing one-person satellite vans without agreement
TWO YEARS AGO management at BBC Cambridge called a staff meeting. The announcement led to confused expressions on people’s faces. Did the BBC really want journalists to do this?
Managers told us they were taking delivery of a new type of satellite TV van, called a Upod. The Upod was different to conventional satvans: one person could drive and operate it, while traditional satvans need a driver/operator plus separate camera crew and reporter. One person would drive the van, control the satellite link, operate the onboard camera and digital editing equipment, ask the questions, record the answers and all the rest of it.
This person would be a video-journalist on the TV newsroom reporters’ rota. But no-one should worry, management said; there would be appropriate training.
The importance of this announcement was immense. If the BBC got away with introducing the Upod like this, by the backdoor, then the NUJ could wave goodbye to all the agreements covering working practices that it had spent years drawing up. The impact would be much more widely felt than by those who worked at BBC Cambridge.
Our sister union, BECTU, covering technical and other grades within the BBC, was equally outraged. A common position was soon formed. The NUJ did not want journalists working beyond a journalist’s responsibilities (not to mention taking someone else’s job), and BECTU did not want a journalist carrying out tasks best covered by someone with a technical background, training and experience. It was quickly decided that no-one would be involved with the Upod until a proper agreement was reached over working practices.
It became apparent that the decision had been taken far higher up the management chain than Cambridge. Managers tried to argue that an existing multi-skilling agreement covered the Upod’s operation, but the unions argued successfully that, as that agreement was seven years old, this type of vehicle had not even been thought of, so the argument could not apply.
Negotiations continued and agreement was reached on a year-long trial, with a dedicated operator from a technical background, who would drive and operate the Upod and its digital gear and meet up with a reporter to work as a conventional TV crew. When the pilot ended, it was clear the Upod needed a dedicated technical operator. It was equally clear that it would not work if staffed by a single journalist.
It took about 18 months to reach an agreement. We have got a satisfactory conclusion that puts health and safety at the heart of the Upod operation and ensures that no journalist will operate it alone. The agreement covers all the BBC’s English Regions.
The NUJ has never been against new technology. The Upod can offer opportunities for members of both unions. The TV output would be more exciting and relevant and attract more viewers. What the NUJ is against is the imposition of new technology without agreement.
After all it is the people who have to operate equipment day to day, who know best how to make sure it works reliably. And if I wanted to drive a van for a living I would work for DHL.