Through the double doors...

It's difficult to describe the atmosphere in BBC national newsrooms as a strike approaches.  Night-shift teams come in for work, starting at 2100/2200 or later - and then get their coats and bags to walk out together at midnight.  Senior managers and editors are hanging round in offices the other side of double doors, waiting to start the skeleton service - the workers suspect they are fuelled by hospitality trolleys for their unusual hours.  Some newsroom staff will stay on, of course, and those BECTU members already at work won't have to cross a picket line.  There's often some commonsense, discreet "handovers" between the strikers and the managers on material that has been planned or set-up.  But in general, it is very much "us" and "them", with cautious glances between thosing walking out, and the managers, in night-shift casuals, filtering in.

The strikers will gather outside with radios and mini-tvs to see whether the bosses make a hash of the first midnight news - and to see who they've got to present them.  The managers, meanwhile, have been planning for weeks - and will do what they can sustain without serious "going to black", and no more.   Both sides - in the offices, and on the street - hope that other people, at a higher level, are trying to work a way out of this.