By Jeffrey Goldfarb
LONDON (Reuters) - BBC journalists and technical workers on Thursday authorized strike action over four days in the coming weeks to disrupt popular programmes, but have avoided big events like the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Members of the National Union of Journalists, BECTU and Amicus are planning to strike over job cuts for 24 hours on May 23 and for 48 hours over May 31 and June 1.
A fourth strike day was authorized but the date has yet to be set.
Officials from technical workers union BECTU said the fourth date would be within a week of the third date, and that they would meet during the first week of June to decide whether any further strike dates were necessary.
"We’ve not sought to target particular events like the Chelsea Flower Show or other programmes, but to have the biggest effect across the BBC," said NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear.
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Soccer’s FA Cup Final is scheduled for May 21, the Chelsea Flower Show May 24-28 and the Wimbledon Championships June 20-July 3.
Popular breakfast programmes and nightly news broadcasts are likely to be affected, but the BBC has not yet finalised its TV and radio schedules for the strike days.
"By threatening the BBC’s output, the unions put at risk the BBC’s relationship with the public, which is not in anyone’s interest," BBC officials said in a statement.
"We will, of course, do everything we can to bring the best possible service to viewers and listeners during any industrial action," they added.
On Wednesday, union members voted to authorize strike action to protest the broadcaster’s plans to cut about 20 percent of its workforce, or about 4,000 jobs, under Director General Mark Thompson.
"We have absolutely no doubt that BBC staff will act with their feet and walk out in huge numbers, causing major disruption to programme output," Dear said.
The unions said they would call off the strike if the BBC granted a 90-day moratorium to the planned staff cuts, guaranteed that any redundancies be voluntary and protected conditions of jobs set to be outsourced.
"These are the opening shots in a campaign to force the BBC to negotiate with the trade unions," said BECTU’s lead BBC official Luke Crawley. "We cannot waste time ’consulting,’ we need to discuss how to stop the cuts."
