Another bizarre "equality" case

[FoxEye]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50599080

One presenter presents a show nobody watches (News Watch). Another presents a different, and arguably more prestigious and much longer-running show - Points of View.

Now imagine that both presenters were male. Or both female.

Why would the BBC not be able to pay presenters differently based on the show they are involved with?

It's like saying a Game of Thrones actor should be paid the same as an actor in Poldark. Well maybe they might be, but there's no guarantee of that, because the audience numbers are different, the production budgets are different, everything is different.

But because Samira Ahmed is a woman (and also a minority ethnicity), she has successfully won at tribunal, arguing that her appearance fee should be the same as Jeremy Vine's. Regardless of the programme or type of programme both are involved in.

And now we've got to endure another round of "We should all be paid the same as the (top male earner), because..."

And lol, on the news now, some woman is saying it's discrimination that women pay more than men for hair cuts. I'm not even ****ing you.

/triggered

e: Given that News Watch is utter crap, it would amuse me greatly if the BBC just canned it and laid her off.

 

[FoxEye]

She was paid the same as her male predecessor, I'm really surprised she's won this case based on gender discrimination, that fact should have just killed it off completely.

Yeah it's blatantly obvious this isn't about gender. It's just a crap show and nobody gets paid big bucks for presenting News Watch, lol.

Simple resolution - reduce the wages of every single presenter to that of the lowest earning presenter on the BBC regardless of their sex/gender - then they're all paid the same and there can be no more problems can there - its simple really!

I mean if I was a much lower paid presenter working for the BBC but doing similar work/shows, after seeing this result I'd also be taking them to tribunal for exactly the same reasons and expecting to win!

It's already been said (on the news) that this opens the door for many, many cases to be brought against the BBC and others.

It's going to be another tidal wave of claims.

Basically you have to pay all your female presenters the same as your highest-earning male presenter, or else...

 

[FoxEye]

Why is some equality real and some woke? How do you decide which is which?

It's fairly obvious that in terms of the market, the BBC can only suffer because of rulings like this.

They cannot now pay popular presenters more than no-name presenters.

They cannot pay staff working on popular shows more than presenters on shows that nobody watches.

What do you think will happen to the successful presenters (etc)? They'll get fed up and move to another network.

Either you've now got to pay all your staff at the rate of the highest earners, or cut everyone's pay.

So either they have to cut their output drastically because everything is now super expensive, or pay crap wages and watch their people quit.

And none of this is "equality". Most people won't have even seen Samira Ahmed on TV. She doesn't present any of the big shows. Everyone knows who Jeremy Vine is. Samira wants big bucks for a pathetic show, and now she's got it.

 

[FoxEye]

No it doesn't, they were doing ostensibly the same thing.

In part it comes down to the Tribunal's decision that they was "no skill" in the work that either Samira or Jeremy were doing.

And that popularity of presenters/charisma/popularity of their programmes or products was not a valid means to discriminate in terms of pay. So a popular show should pay the same as a bad one.

Anyway various commentators have said this is going to be a "massive financial hit" for the BBC - due to hundreds of similar claims waiting in the wings.

These are now all likely to be successful.

Great news for tax payers.

 

[FoxEye]

It's naive to want equality? Okey dokey!

False/forced equality is not good for anyone.

Or should I say "equality".

Today there is the push to make everyone equal even when it's blatantly obvious that their worth is different. The value of their contribution is different.

 

[FoxEye]

It's not complicated in the slightest. The way it works now, I'm not surprised she won her case.

Even tho the BBC said she was paid the same as her male predecessor, and the claim was on the grounds of gender discrimination?

 

[FoxEye]

The article tells you all you need to know:

In other words it was a your typical far left kangaroo court, if she believes she is victim of sexual discrimination then the onus should be on her to prove it, the court shouldn't be working from the assumption that her claim is true and the BBC have to prove their innocence.

But the BBC said she is/was paid the same as her male predecessor.

How does that not prove that it wasn't sex discrimination??

I don't understand that part.

It basically means that two men can be paid unequally and the lower paid man has nothing he can do except change employers.
But if a woman is paid less, she can just bring a sex discrimination claim, and win it.

So how is that "equality"? I ask someone like @matt100

 

[FoxEye]

Please elaborate? For clarity I don't think equality is the same as communism. I also see it's beyond dispute that women get paid less than men for the same work.

Do they?

Last time I checked the pay was pretty equal until the time that a woman has her first child.

Typically afterwards, working patterns, experience and pay diverge substantially.

I wonder why? Must be discrimination, eh?

 

[FoxEye]

Yeah I guess so? Unless you decide the contribution of doing the thing you physically can't but which is literally the only thing that can continue the human race deserves a drop in wages? Dunno?

Ah so here we get to the reality, eh?

From the employer's perspective the candidates aren't equal.

You're now saying the female candidates should be given special treatment (ie unequal treatment) to factor in the effect if they all chose not have kids.

So by your own admission this isn't equal pay for equal work/skills/experience.

I mean if that's the logical conclusion then the best thing to do is for women to stop giving birth if they want to earn as much as men, which would do the planet no end of good but considering we're already in a declining population might pose some challenges?

Well we agree on one thing

 

[FoxEye]

I'd support your right to give birth Loretta.

So just answer this in summary.

Are we paying equal pay for equal performance, or are we paying equal pay and expecting less performance from women because they bear children?

 

[FoxEye]

I mean another way to look at it is if we’re going to pay women less because they have the front to continue the race (and do something men are physically incapable of doing and I suspect wouldn’t do even if they could)

You appear to have just contradicted yourself tho. You start by saying that that's not what we're doing - that in actual fact we're discriminating because men are in charge, and men prefer men, and women have just as much experience - then you throw this in there, which suggests otherwise?

And you finish by saying that GD couldn't possibly have a reasonable discussion about it, so it's best left to lefties/feminists (one presumes) to decide what's fair or not.

 

[FoxEye]

OK so the discussion is done and we're just throwing around inane quips?

And you say GD is setting the bar low... well maybe consider your own contribution?

 

[FoxEye]

But what of this specific case? Where the unknown (virtually) presenter was paid the same as her male predecessor?

For all we know her predecessor might have tried to increase his pay and been rebuked. Samira won at tribunal on sex discrimination grounds.

Clearly if she was being paid the same as her male predecessor this is just gaming the system...?

And as has been said by multiple lawyers, this now opens the BBC up (and others) to thousands of claims, perhaps many on similarly dubious grounds.

Yes, dubious grounds. Which isn't to say there aren't genuine claims, but very much not all claims will be genuine.

 

[FoxEye]

Does this mean the previous male presenter can now sue for back pay due to being paid less than the current female presenter?

I suspect the honest-to-goodness, actual legal position is no, because he's a man. Therefore no discrimination could have taken place.

It's a strange world.

The back-dating of Samira's pay also means that on the first day Samira took over as the new presenter, on the same pay as her predecessor, she didn't get an immediate 700% pay-rise because of sexual discrimination.

Whereas he didn't get a pay-rise because... erm, who cares? He's a man.

 

[FoxEye]

Dammit I hadn't considered whether rofflay off ocuk had heard of her or whether any of that had anything to do with the wider discussion or whether there could have been any sexism based reason as to why a male presenter might have had more opportunities that lead to him becoming famous in the first place and that enforcing equal pay might redress that balance.

I'm stumped now lol.

Samira's predecessor was male.

Clearly his male privilege wasn't working properly.

He also isn't getting his pay back-dated, despite now being paid 7x less than Samira Ahmed for doing the same job.

Do you care about him?

 

[FoxEye]

The outcome in every case would live and die on its merits but the more that are lost the quicker we'll move to greater equality.

The ends justify the means?

 

[FoxEye]

Lol triggered.. the incels are out in force!

Have we given up trying to debate like an adult, then? I guess so.

 

[FoxEye]

Well it was reported previously that lawyers believe there are "hundreds" of claims that the BBC is now likely to lose, following the precedent set by Samira.

That precedent being that you don't actually need any evidence of gender discrimination to win a gender discrimination case at tribunal.

 

[FoxEye]

No? But again we’re making what appear to be almost intentionally erroneous comparisons for the sake of hyperbole.. For starters I’m also a man so sex discrimination would be difficult but also, I’m not a TV presenter with decades of experience. If I were a woman with that comparable experience and ws paid significantly less then that could be on dodgy ground.

Samira Ahmed and Jeremy Vine don't have comparable experience or comparable recognition.

Comparing David Attenborough to some unknown BBC3 presenter is analogous.

It's not hyberbole, given that the situation in the thread/OP is largely the same as D.A.'s replacement expecting the same pay as D.A. Samira Ahmed is a nobody who presents one show that has a tiny fraction of any of Jeremy's audience figures for any show he does.

 

[FoxEye]

As for non-commercial the Beeb has just as many adverts as non-Beeb channels these days. Just for their own content, and often crap I'm not interested in, like Dr Bleddy Who or some carp on BBC3. But we're talking minutes of ads between each programme now.

Seriously, the ad breaks on BBC News are horrific. One of the "ads" is just a clock ticking down for 60s for Pete's sake