Published: April 3rd 2010 - at 10:45 amUnions demand BBC apology on ‘ballot rigging’
Eight National Unions want a retraction and apology from the BBC, to Bob Crow and the RMT, for unsubstantiated allegation by John Humphrys.
In the Today programme yesterday, in an interview with Bob Crow, he alleged vote rigging over member balloting.
John McDonnell MP said: How can a ballot conducted by the Electoral Reform Society be rigged? This was one of the most disgraceful biased performances of an interviewer and of the BBC itself in the history of the BBC and its treatment of trade unions.
The Court case in which the RMT dispute was discussed did not infer ballot rigging but errors in the ballot making process. Under law, union ballots have to be conducted by an independent scrutineer. This ballot was sent out, counted and completely run by the Electoral Reform Society.
Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary, said:
Rather than slurring the RMT the BBC should be examining why bosses and judges have the power to prevent unions taking legitimate industrial action to defend their members.
A full repeal of the anti-union laws introduced by Margaret Thatcher is long overdue. The right to strike is essential to any democratic society. If we forget that we are moving into very dangerous territory.
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Reader comments
This is rubbish. Humphreys said the court ruling “raises suspicions the ballot was rigged” he didn’t actually accuse the union of ballot rigging.
There is a simple explanation for what went wrong with the ballot this but Bob Crow failed to give it. Instead he spouted arcane and irrelevant detail then used righteous indignation, claiming he was being accused of ballot rigging, when he realised he was losing the argument.
http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/bob-crow-shoots-himself-in-the-foot/
Humpteys comment was rather like saying ,
” the amount that Mark Thompson and the other bunch pay themselves at the top of this outmoded and outdated PSB raises suspicions that the BBC executive who sign off on these ridiculous pay scales share the same Gold Plated steam rooms as both Humphreys and Thompson.”
And yes there is a simple explanation for what went wrong, the unions have not got the balls to go to court themselves as they are clinging to the equally outdated notion of the ‘withdrawal of labour’. How about waking up a bit and firing off some network centric strategies, you know multiple attacks, multiple targets. The unions would be shocked to find if they got these companies to court how badly run and corrupt the majority of them are. what are they frightened off ? if they do not start hitting back soon and embarrassing these execs in the same way the MP’s go outed then we soon it will be illegal to ‘withdraw labour full stop’.
Collective consciousness then collective action.
This is rubbish. Humphreys said the court ruling “raises suspicions the ballot was rigged” he didn’t actually accuse the union of ballot rigging.
Except that the BBC headline after said: ‘unions deny ballot rigging’ – which is rather like saying ‘when did you stop beating your wife’? It implies some misconduct:
http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/john-mcdonnell-on-the-anti-trade-union-laws/
I’m not convinced by the ‘He just said it raises suspicions!’ argument. He made an unsubstantiated claim and tried to hide behind passive, neutral phrasing. Anyone can see that it was pure weasel language though, and that he was basically saying “We reckon the vote was rigged”.
If Humphrys can’t understand that then he’s unqualified to be a newsreader.
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