BBC women claim ‘veiled threats’ used in gender pay gap debate

The BBC will come under scrutiny this week as parliament’s media committee is set to hear testimonies in its investigation into a complaint by women at the BBC, a group of 170 staff, over widespread gender pay gap.

Carrie Grace, the broadcaster’s former China editor who quit this month in protest of the pay gap, will be called Wednesday to provide oral evidence. Senior BBC managers, including director-general Tony Hall, are also due to appear before the committee.

The women accused the network of paying them less than it did their male colleagues in equivalent jobs, Reuters reported. They also claimed their managers misled them about their pay to hide the discrimination.

“While individual BBC managers have been supportive, there is still a bunker mentality in some quarters and women have experienced veiled threats made against them when they raised the subject of equal pay,” BBC Women said in written evidence to the committee.

The gap affected every part of the organization, not just high earners, it added.

In July, the BBC was forced to disclose that two-thirds of its on-air high earners were men and that some of them were paid more than their female peers.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has also lodged a collective grievance to the BBC on behalf of 121 women.

The BBC, which reaches 95% of British adults every week, said in response to the women and NUJ complaints that it was committed to equal pay. It did not accept the assertion that it had not been complying with equality laws, Reuters reported.

Six of the network’s best-known male presenters and journalists have agreed to take pay cuts. While these were welcomed, equal-pay advocates said it did not solve the underlying issues.

In its complaint, the group provided 14 examples where women described battles with managers after discovery they were being paid less than their male counterparts.

“I have co-presented with a male colleague for many years ... I estimate he’s paid around double what I earn for doing the same job,” said one of the women. “I raised the equal pay issue many times over the years, but nothing was done.”


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