Siemens' IT workers ballot for strike action at Beeb

Siemens IT staff working at the BBC are mulling possible strike action over a planned pay freeze by the tech firm. Bectu said it was sending out ballot papers to members today, in which the broadcasting union recommends industrial action. The ballot will close on 19 March and followed Siemens' decision to bring in a pay …

[Neil Greatorex]

Hmm, if it received the approval of

Tessa Jowell, it was bound to fail.

Nuff said really.

[DominicT]

No Surprise

So, yet again the private sector prove that they are the ones to make efficiency savings and so on, eh? When will people learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing on the wall

The writing was on the wall the moment they announced the sell off. It's ironic to think that the staff at the division I worked at somehow thought Siemens would be a better bet than any of the other bidders. The long term picture was always going to be the same.

I made my decision to leave the day the sell off was confirmed, although I was there long enough to see the changes for the worse begin. The job stopped being about trying to do things well and became all about the bottom line, SLA's and manager backslapping.

Last I heard most of the really talented guys had gone to jobs elsewhere, ironically with better pay!

Now R+D is being raped in the name of cost savings and a move to Manchester. The Kingswood Warren lot may have been a bunch of oddballs, but they were bloody smart and developed alot of broadcast technologies.

[Ascylto]

Semens - What a waste!

The title is deliberate ... what a bunch of ouanquerres!

I thought the BBC would have got rid of them after they bolloxed the phone system!

They could have got EDS in instead!

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Semens - What a waste!

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE!

[Echelon_watches]

BBC Phones ?????

The BBC's phones (central nervous system) has ALWAYS been privatised.

Actually the BBC's ENTIRE phone system was run perfectly fine AND cheaply (just ONE person and assistant did ALL the remote cofiguration of the numbers in the entire system), by Ericssons / Damovo right up until the Siemens Contract for their massive private Network of MD110's.

Shame they didn't think about 'You don't know what you got till it's gone'.

Anyone in the Comms business know that Siemens have never run managed phone Contracts in the UK.

A clear case of BBC NOT doing 'Due Diligence' on a prospective Contractor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Management

For anyone who's not familiar with the lady in charge of BBC T at the time the sell off decision was taken, do read this article:

http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=News;action=display;num=1133379028

Paris, because even she doesn't have the front convicted fraudster Ann Wilson had!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please collect your linguafone course up as you leave.

I've heard rumours that they're moving the whole support operation to Elbonia - no joke.