BBC journalists hold 24-hour strike

British Broadcasting Corp. journalists walked off the job Monday saying management was not negotiating in good faith over job reductions. Journalism.co.uk reported Monday that the strike had disrupted programing with Radio 4's "Today" show delayed by one hour and aired with a shortened program. The show "World at One" was expected to be knocked off the air with management replacing the program with a show about soul music. The strike, the second in a series of work actions, is scheduled to end at midnight. However, journalists are planning to move into a "work to rule" mode after the strike. "Work to rule" refers to journalists performing tasks that are on their contract, but no more than that. The strike is in protest of 387 jobs expected to be cut at the World Service and BBC Monitoring. "The BBC's current actions spell disaster for quality journalism. The corporation is wasting thousands of pounds making hard working, skilled and experienced journalists redundant. Instead they should be adopting alternative solutions and redeploy those who are threatened. No one should be forced out of work when there are jobs available for journalists to do," said Michelle Stanistreet, the general-secretary of the National Union of Journalists. BBC management and the union are scheduled to resume negotiations Aug. 11. The union, previously, had accused management of walking away from the negotiating table. Lucy Adams, the BBC's director of business operations, said, "We have been working with all these affected staff to ensure that they have opportunities for redeployment and retraining but we cannot and will not give preferential treatment to individuals depending on their union status."