This is taken from Broadcast Online:

BBC and unions extend talks by two months
by Geoff White
13 January 2006 11:24


BBC staff facing compulsory redundancy have won a stay of execution after broadcasting unions and management agreed to extend negotiations for two months.

BBC director general Mark Thompson met Bectu, Amicus and the NUJ yesterday in a bid to thrash out an agreement on around 200 staff facing the axe as part of Thompson's plan to cut 3,780 jobs by March 2008.

Thompson has agreed to extend talks on the worst affected areas - BBC Scotland and Wales, and the news and factual and learning departments - for two months.

Compulsory redundancy notices due to be sent out on 1 February cannot now be issued until 1 April. Thompson has also pledged to urge department managers to do everything possible to avoid compulsories.

The agreement amounts to a stay of execution, with the unions still insisting that any compulsory lay-offs will lead to strikes.

"We will work hard in these new talks to secure change through agreement but the BBC has been warned that further industrial action remains a possibility should any of our members face compulsory redundancy," said NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear.

Source:broadcastnow.co.uk
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This is taken from The Guardian:

BBC and unions in job cuts truce
by Jason Deans

Potential industrial action at the BBC over Mark Thompson's sweeping job cuts has been averted after a five-hour meeting last night between the director general and union officials.

Mr Thompson and the broadcasting unions - Bectu, Amicus and the NUJ - reached a new agreement during the meeting about how to achieve the cuts while minimising compulsory redundancies.

The BBC agreed to delay plans to send out compulsory redundancy notices by two months, to April 1, to allow more time for negotiations with the unions in divisions where there are still outstanding issues about the cuts.

Problem areas include BBC Scotland, BBC Wales, the factual and learning department and BBC News, according to the unions, and cover about 200 or so proposed compulsory redundancies.

Mr Thompson also undertook to ask BBC divisional directors to redouble their efforts to minimise compulsory redundancies and look at whether the job cuts could be reduced by better coordination between different areas of the corporation.

Last summer following talks at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the BBC agreed to delay any compulsory redundancies until July 2006.

In order to keep to this deadline, the unions yesterday waived two months of a five month redeployment period granted to staff facing compulsory redundancy. This will allow the issuing of redundancy notices to be put back from February 1 to April 1.

"Mark Thompson said that the BBC had to meet its value-for-money and headcount targets and that that the change programme had to continue within the context of the existing divisional talks and the timetable laid down in the Acas agreement," the BBC said of yesterday's meeting.

"The director general reiterated his position that he could not rule out the need for compulsories in some divisions but said he remained committed to achieving as much as possible through voluntary means. He proposed to meet union officials towards the end of the year for a further update on progress on the change programme."

The NUJ general secretary, Jeremy Dear, said: "We have always believed changes at the BBC should and could be made through negotiation and agreement. There is now a better chance we can achieve that through
continuing negotiations.

"We will work hard in these new talks to secure change through agreement but the BBC has been warned that further industrial action remains a possibility should any of our members face compulsory redundancy."

Mr Thompson revealed in an email to staff last month that 88% of the post closures necessary under his plans to save £355m a year would be met by voluntary departures.

But he added that another 12% of redundancies would have to be compulsory. Once outsourcing - believed to account for about a third of the 6,000 job losses - natural wastage and other factors are taken into account, Mr Thompson's 12% is believed to equate to approximately 280 jobs.

The unions took strike action last May in protest at the job cuts but agreed to suspend further planned industrial action after reaching an Acas agreement with BBC management.

Last May's agreement included a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies for 12 months and a commitment to local-level talks to address concerns over job losses and workloads.