The National Union of Journalists has described a report into BBC pay as “a PR exercise” and called on the Corporation to reach a “pragmatic solution” to avoid “inevitable” legal action.
An audit of on-air pay by PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by the BBC, concluded that there was “no gender bias” at the Corporation.
But legal analysis carried out by the NUJ has found that, “the BBC, by its own admission, would find it difficult to defend any claims for equal pay brought by those women in a court or tribunal because it will struggle to explain why decisions were made in determining the pay of the on-air presenters and journalists.”
It added: “This is because of the lack of transparency and clarity about the basis for making pay decisions, or in other words no one knows why some men are being paid more than some women.”
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “The conclusion of our legal analysis of the latest PWC report is that it is a PR exercise and not a genuine inquiry into fairness and equality of pay for on-air talent.
“If it was a genuine inquiry, or a genuine equal pay audit, then the on-air review (OAR) would have included data on the average basic pay and total average pay for women and men in each equal work group, as most published equal pay audits do. Instead, the OAR only gives the median and mean percentage gender pay gap, which prevents female NUJ members from using the OAR to make meaningful comparisons with their own remuneration.
“It’s time for the BBC to hold its hands up and admit that it has got things badly wrong on pay in the past. As well as engaging with staff to come up with a career framework that is fit for purpose in the future, the BBC needs to urgently sit down and come to a pragmatic settlement with women who have been denied pay and pension contributions they are entitled to over many years.
“If they don’t do that, legal action to ensure NUJ members recoup those losses is inevitable.”
