Well, well, well! Samira's won, and the BBC's lost. She is worth as much as Jeremy Vine!
Presenter Samira Ahmed wins BBC equal pay tribunal https://t.co/99EBwdhdpr— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 10, 2020
I'm presuming she'll be awarded the £700,000 in back pay she says the BBC owes her (doutbless paid by licence fee payers). Will she give it all to charity, like Carrie Gracie?
As we were discussing here the other day, Samira Ahmed is freelance. It says so on her LinkedIn page. The BBC report, however, quotes her saying, "No woman wants to have to take action against their own employer. I love working for the BBC."
It might be all very simple, but it seems confusing to me. Does she work for the BBC or just do work for the BBC?
It might be all very simple, but it seems confusing to me. Does she work for the BBC or just do work for the BBC?
BBC statement on Samira Ahmed tribunal judgement: https://t.co/r4b6XDABU7 pic.twitter.com/hJBwAtKBgm— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) January 10, 2020
This was always a likely outcome having looked at the evidence as it was reported.
ReplyDeleteWhy don’t they equalise pay by dropping down Vine’s extortionate salary to match that of Ahmed?
No chance of that, so us licence payers will have to fund the increase and everyone else at the BBC affected by this judgement
Is the written decision available yet? I can't find it on the government tribunal website pages. Without that, we don't know whether the freelance status point was argued or not.
ReplyDeleteHere it is, 40 pages long!
Deletehttps://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2206858-2018rjr.pdf
Thanks Charlie. That's one long written decision! My laptop won't let me 'control and F' to search it - unless it's the format. I wanted to search on 'freelance' and 'Snoddy'. I'm going to have to pop on a symphony - I think Sir Granville Bantock's Celtic Symphony (try YouTube) - and skim through it.
DeleteThank you for that, Charlie. I actually found it in The Guardian! Thanks, BBC. You demand money from me with menaces so that you can keep me informed so why wasn't the detailed decision linked in the article I saw?
DeleteAnyway, I saw from the decision that Ahmed and Vine were both originally freelancers on contracts with personal services companies because the BBC required that at the time.
Later, Vine's changed to take account of guidance from HMRC that he qualified as an employee for income tax purposes.
Ahmed's also changed, first to an OATS contract, which appears to be a personal (rather than a company) contract for a fixed term, and finally to a permanent staff contract; that is an employee contract.
So why does she describe herself as a "Freelance Journo" on her twitter account?...and why do the BBC allow her to podcast for rival organisations if she is a staffer? Surely that is a basic element in a BBC staffer's contract.
DeleteThe BBC are not only a mendacious Fake News organisation, they also seem to be incredibly incompetent in how they manage their staff...despite being probably the most managed organisation in the World, barring only perhaps the Chinese Communist Party.
I didn't know that about her twitter and have no idea why. She is definitely what they call graded staff though: part of her complaint was that she was classed as a grade E instead of F. They bungled even her E grading - it was supposed to be Senior Leader E but was designated Leader E and they also misled her about it; the tribunal didn't use the word 'lied' but did say they went through a charade that they were consulting her about it - even though the decision had already been made. It's a right circus, that place.
DeleteGoing back to the previous discussion of this case, I heard her call the BBC her "employer". Surely the BBC is not her employer if she is a freelancer.
ReplyDeleteI did a word seach on the Judgement provided by Charlie (thanks!)...nowhere does it refer to the BBC as her "employer". It does however refer to work, jobs, and pay. I'm confused by all this. When does a contract become a "job"?
DeleteThis judgement is about as objective and real world friendly as that of Spider Lady Hale's gang.
ReplyDeleteThe only people who benefit from this sort of thing are lawyers and HR bureaucracies.
This is becoming seriously confusing - Samira's status and the ruling - but I'm placing the judge in this case alongside Spider Lady Hale as a judge who is far from infallible.
DeleteEven Evan for 'eavens' sake was expressing some bafflement on PM (or "The Evan Davis Show" to use the correct title, of course). The key seems to be that the BBC could not justify its claims that Housewives'/Transgender Favourite Jeremy Vine had a certain "glint in his eye" that the audience love...because they had no contemporaneous records to show that was how the figure for remuneration was reached.
DeletePresumably now every band or comedian who books a support act will now have to make laborious notes explaining why they haven't been awarded the same remuneration as the headline act.
Google IR35, all the BBC “freelancers” were/are knowingly evading tax.
ReplyDeleteThe point at issue is whether anyone should be paid £440 or £3000 for a 15 minute slot read off an autocue. For 15 minutes work and a couple of practice runs, it wouldn't amount to more than an hour's work - this is more than a QC who has studied for years while reading an autocue just requires an ability to read without fluffing it... i.e. no real qualifications. The BBC overpays everyone who works there, and it should pay everyone one a lot less. Whoever leaves can be replaced by an army of wannabees for their BBC jobs.
ReplyDelete