Overview

• Four BBC News journalists aged over 50 with more than a century of combined reporting experience have lodged coordinated age discrimination complaints after being made redundant
• They allege the redeployment process favoured younger candidates by focusing on work from the past two years and requiring buzzwords such as “digital” or “live page”
• One complainant serves as a National Union of Journalists representative and has raised separate concerns of victimisation linked to union activity
• Paul Siegert, the NUJ’s broadcasting organiser, said it will ballot BBC members for strike action if compulsory redundancies proceed without agreement
• A BBC spokesperson said all news restructuring followed established policies and that affected staff receive comprehensive redeployment support