It would appear that the BBC unions significantly overestimated the effect they could have on broadcast output, if yesterday's efforts are anything to go by. Despite an apparently good turnout, I am sure that ordinary viewers and listeners will have noticed little different.
Not only has the influence of the unions decreased since earlier days of broadcasting staff unrest, but broadcasting technology has shifted too, making it much less easy for industrial action to have an impact. Add to that the fact that there would appear to be less public sympathy for strikers in general than in earlier times, it would seem that this kind of approach has little to commend it.
Trouble is, what else can they do? It's difficult to find an answer ? I can't think of one right now, and I'm sure that those affected by the BBC's plans would have come up with something if there was a more effective alternative. At least both sides agreeing to take the issue to ACAS is a good start.
The fundamental problem would appear to be that the BBC is not prepared to negotiate with (as opposed to 'consult') the unions on the swingeing job cuts proposed by the DG. It seems that Thompson, spineless under government pressure, has only stiffened up to confront his own staff.
It's a far cry from the previous administration's attitude to both staff and production: Dyke recognised the need for good staff relations and the importance of quality programming - not to mention the importance of staff, period. It will be interesting to see what he does if we see him in charge, as seems quite likely in the not-too-distant future, of ITV plc.
Of course there is always fat that can be trimmed from an organisation. But the planned cuts are not fat-trimming: they represent a fundamental, ideological change of approach by BBC management, acting, I presume, under government pressure (if it's their own idea then they really need to move on). The idea would appear to be to gut the Corporation's programme-making capability so as to farm it out to independents - making it all the easier to privatise the BBC down the line.
This smells of Thatcherism or the Bush administration: unwilling to admit what they really want to do, the perpetrators give their destructive deeds a positive-sounding name and claim that whatever they're dismantling is "safe in our hands". "Look how poorly the BBC serves the people and spends the licence fee," I can hear a voice announcing in the future. "We need to bring it into the private sector and run it like a real business." Aaargh. There are so many things in Britain that would be so much better off if the trend was in the other direction - from the NHS, to the railways... to the BBC. My belief is that public ownership is the way to handle public services, and back-door (or front-door) privatisation is, quite simply, not. (As an aside, I would suggest that if you see Murdoch's media supporting a political party, it is difficult to imagine that they will do the public much good.)
Basically, I don't see how you save real money for programme-making by reducing your ability to make programmes. You save pretend, creative-accounting, balance-sheet money. Of course, some current employees may return to similar jobs as freelancers, but if the bulk of programme-making is farmed out to independent production companies with their own shareholders and administration costs, how can it be more efficient?
The unions certainly need to stand up successfully in favour of negotiation and against a wholesale ideologically-based loss of jobs - though how they can do that I don't know. The BBC management needs to stand up to the Government, which they evidently won't. And the Government needs to distance itself from Birtian ideas on the role and management of the BBC. He got it wrong when he ran the place, and if it is Lord Birt pulling the strings behind the scenes now, he's got it wrong again. And so many wrongs make for a potential disaster in my view. Let's hope that ACAS can at least get unions and management to talk to each other.
