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ITV strike ballot called off
David Beake
DATELINE: 20/11/08
An NUJ strike ballot at ITV Regional News was called off on 14 November after union members voted to accept a new agreement with the company over planned cutbacks. The new agreement includes further incentives for those people choosing to take voluntary redundancy, as well as a commitment to push back the threat of compulsory redundancies to at least the end of January.
David Beake an NUJ NEC member and ITV freelance producer takes up the story and explains the background:
ITV’s descent from being one of the country’s best employers to being one of the country’s trickiest and most treacherous has been as severe as it has been regrettable. To get the NUJ’s action called off ITV upped redundancy payments to lower paid workers by a thousand pounds. But what they gave with one hand they took away with the other: ITV’s “a la carte” attitude to Union agreements made them pull out of the bits that no longer suited – like our signed and sealed two year pay deal.
While it's hard to see that the cuts and mergers across the country are a massive victory we have far more people going back to work in January in the ITV regions than was wanted by ITV and Ofcom. ITV did not wish to spend one penny of its shareholders’ dividends or its profits on PSB outside the M25.
Ofcom was minded to let them do it, the government was going to look the other way. Union campaigns kept them pinned them down in the regions. ITV’s attacks on the unions that made them stay have been both swift and bloody. ITV took the top 50% of journalist jobs in the regions out of the NUJ’s collective negotiating agreements.
While it remains to be seen how many of these workers will remain within the union, we have to make it our business to see that they do. Many older higher paid journalists have taken voluntary redundancy; posts are being filled by younger people and the demand on the NUJ now is to recruit as many of these people as possible to maintain NUJ strength, get us back in these new newsrooms, recognised not only as a major force but also as part of the union’s collective strength that preserved the jobs of everyone still in there.
Last modified: Thursday, November 20, 2008
Your comments:
The sorry tale at ITV is just one more example of the relationship that Ofcom has to public service broadcasting. We can add to this the announcement on 21 November 2008 that Ofcom has effectively prevented the BBC from embarking on a new form of video based local television. Those people who have watched the slow decline of commercial public service broadcasting, plus the growth of poorly regulated competition, and the accompanying casualisation of the sector, will not find it hard to recognise the hand of Ofcom in most of these developments. Of course Ofcom is just the expression of a wider malaise in Government broadcasting policy. The drift to under-regulation started in the late 1980s, but got a big boost after the election of Labour in 1997. Ofcom, and the people who staff it, are there as an expression of this overall policy. Ofcom is constantly pushing forward the idea that the way to organise communications is, basically through markets. Hence the way it has allowed ITV to retreat from its obligations as a provider of news and non-news programming, hence its willingness to act as an overseer of the BBC. It has been staffed, at the very top, by people who appear to genuinely believe that markets deliver best in the area of communications - in spite of the fact that there is decades of evidence showing that markets simply do not deliver the best that can be had in TV and radio. Lots of organisations and individuals have engaged in what can only be described as Ofcom's 'serial consultation obsession'. It generates consultation after consultation, to which only the most well resourced organisations can respond. It shows little evidence of listening to criticisms that are put to it about the direction of its policy. What can be done? Well, the first thing is to begin to think about abolishing Ofcom. We do need a regulator, but we need one that is democratically accountable, representative and committed to expanding public service media. We need an organisation that does not both grant licences and supervise commercial communications. We need a system of communications regulations that extends issues of democratic accountability across the sector. We will not get that as long as Ofcom continues. In challenging Ofcom's right to exist, we can also challenge the misguided and partisan approach to communications policy that has been the dull orthodoxy of careerist politicians since the mid-1980s.
Posted by: Tom O'Malley: 21 Nov, 2008 16:44:14
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More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
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The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
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Previous stories
Public Service Broadcasting
Sertuc conference postponed
Here we go again!
Campaigning for quality television
The future of PSB - postponed
Opting Out
Citizenship and Public Service Broadcasting
How do Ofcom and the BBC Trust see their Roles?
Commission recommends new TV channel for Scotland
Ofcom's 'smash and grab' raid on the BBC licence fee
World Service threatened
Wales, Devolution and Democracy
CPBF responds to Ofcom public service review
NUJ slams 'simplistic' top-slicing arguments
PSB on ITV - No thanks!
BBC unions ballot for action on jobs
Crisis looms in kids' telly
Scottish Broadcasting Commission wants to hear your views
Begin the fight back: How corporate strategists neutered the BBC
Joint statement from the BBC, BECTU, the NUJ and UNITE
BBC unions ballot for action
New Labour takes revenge on BBC
Future of ITV PSB at stake
Crunch time for TV
Digital switchover and the Whitehaven experience
BBC Trust agrees to cuts
CPBF responds to Ofcom's second PSB review
CPBF welcomes Scottish Commission
Save Storyville
Broadcasting Commission in Scotland
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