OB workers invited to Bectu COVID-19 meeting

Outside broadcast workers are being invited to a meeting organised by Bectu, the union for media and creative freelancers, to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on their work.

The meeting is scheduled to take place on Friday 29 May at 11am and is open to members and non-members.

Outside Broadcast workers who have either been furloughed from their employer or are freelancers are all facing the same uncertainty about when they will return to work, said Bectu negotiations executive Sean Kelly.

“Bectu has been working on behalf of the entire creative industries to ensure that they have access to government support through consistent lobbying of government and employers. But now, crew are now asking how they can get back to work.”, he added.

Kelly, a former OB vision engineer, continued “It’s difficult to understand social isolation in an OB context – many of the crew are working tightly packed in confined spaces in OB trucks, and it takes at least two people to rig much of the heavy kit, for example – so we want to work with OB companies to understand how our members can return to a safe working environment, and this meeting is the first step in that conversation.”

Andy Campbell, Bectu camera committee’s OB rep, said:

“Working in OB is a bit like working in theatre, everything’s live and there’s no take two – you’ve got to be able to react to problems quickly and there is very much the feeling that the show must go on. There is a deadline and things have to work by the time we go to air.

“We’ve all sprinted to get the right gear if something is broken, but the pressure to deliver and the work ethos we have needs to be carefully adjusted to ensure that social distancing can still be respected.”

During the course of the meeting there will also be a number of polls covering issues including confidence in social distancing while doing OB work, the impact coronavirus has had on budgets and how well supported the OB community has been during the crisis.

For an invitation to the meeting email [email protected]