Monday, May 19, 2008

Getting ready to save the world....service

It's non-stop at the moment with a number of major issues set to come to the boil this week. Later today we've got the launch of the Save BBC World Service campaign at Bush House, followed on Wednesday by the start of Shiv Malik's appeal against the production order granted against him, followed on Thursday by the first day of a 5-day strike planned in York.

But first a catch-up on last week.
Tuesday we carried out a disability audit in Headland House, the union's London office and I met later in the day with three photographer members to discuss the surveillance of journalists by the Met's FIT team.

Wednesday morning I did an interview with Channel 4 on the Shiv Malik case, then met with Bectu, Napo and the GFTU to discuss the possibility of sharing a building. Had a meeting with Alex Pascall then went to Parliament with President James Doherty and Jim McNally to meet MPs Katy Clark and Pete Wishart to discuss the planned cuts at The Herald in Glasgow. Good response from them both. I also had a quick chat with Angus Robertson MP who pledged his support for our campaign to defend quality journalism.

At 7pm it was to BBC World Service and a meeting with the South Asia service staff who are facing the offshoring of large parts of their work. It was an excellent meeting with plans drawn up for some high-profile activity in the coming weeks. Left there about 10pm.

Thursday and Friday were largely taken up by our Officials Meeting - held twice a year to bring the union's full time officers together - we covered disability equality issues, handling stress cases as well as discussions on legal, finance, staffing and some of our key campaigns over the next 12 months or so.

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