The BBC is sinking itself deeper into the mire over equal payment for women with the China editor resigning because she had discovered, despite promises to the contrary on contract renewal, that she was not on parity with male editors in similar jobs. Carrie Grace said she had discovered over the previous year the two male foreign editors were paid 50% more than the two female editors. Today’s John Humphreys then compounded the aggravation by cracking jokes off mic, as he thought, on the subject, leading to threats of a mass walkout amongst female presenters.
The Moon in the BBC chart is sparsely aspected and tucked away out of sight in the 4th house; with the Progressed Moon now almost in opposition in the 10th, pulling the issue of women employees out of the kitchen into the public arena.
The late January Lunar Eclipse in Leo is also going to oppose the BBC Mars suggesting a major barney on issues of balance and transparency is brewing and will continue through the year with the July 2018 Lunar Eclipse rattling the BBC Mars as well.
Tr Jupiter is moving towards a conjunction to the BBC Scorpio Sun within two weeks, which should give the BBC a confidence boost. But perhaps it’s also doing the cause of womankind good, since Jupiter moved into Scorpio just as the #metoo campaign kicked off. Not that is likely to move to a fast conclusion given the BBC’s customary intransigence and bureaucratic obfuscation.
The BBC is a public corporation with a mandate to provide broadcasting as a Public Service. In other words supposed to be an independent body held in trust for the British people.
The public pays a tax (license fee) to the Westminster Treasury for the service. The Government in place at the time then decides how much funding should be transferred from the Treasury to the BBC, which is in turn controlled by the BBC Trust.
The Prime Minister selects the 12 members of the BBC Trust (formerly Board of Governors from 1927-2007). Day to day management is handled by the Board of Management, headed by the Director General. It’s members are appointed by the BBC Trust and round and round we go.
So there you have it. We fork out money to a broadcaster that is controlled by the Government of the day … to a GREAT extent. To gain even more insight check out who has been sitting on the BBC Trust Committee and the Board of Management over time. Ask yourself questions such as, for ONE, why the Chairman of BAE Arms was selected as Chairman of the BBC Trust.
The BBC is state owned or am I wrong about that? Anyway they sure got caught out with this, it is pretty disgraceful.
It just beggars belief that the BBC is getting away with breaching Equal Pay Legislation in this country. Easily resolved by bringing male employee’s extortionate level of wages down in line with females (also extortionate, imo). If not Scot, Carrie Gracie’s lawyer should select a male comparator and take the case to Court. Set the precedence and open the floodgate.
I’m pleased to see that some future aspects are going to ‘rattle’ the BBC cage. Not before time. Up until last May they’d benefited from 90 years of being unregulated by any Independent body and latterly had individuals such as Rona Fairhead (HSBC money laundering fiasco – now International Trade Minister) and Sir Roger Carr (also Chairman of the BAE Arms Trade) chairing the BBC Trust. Extremely dodgy … extremely influential … individuals calling the shots.
And don’t we know it here in Scotland. Scotland said to have the most powerfully devolved Parliament in the World has absolutely no control over broadcasting at all. What a farce. We are subjected to being asked to pay for the Establishments propaganda to be pumped into our living rooms on a daily basis. The latest example being Sarah Smith daughter of the late John Smith, Labour leader, and Baroness Smith (£600,000 House of Lords rip off merchant) informing the Scots on Thursday that their NHS is abysmal and that 100,000 Scots weren’t seen within the 4 hour A&E waiting time last week. No mention of the situation elsewhere. Scotland’s NHS is incomparably superior to England’s and the figure in fact should have been 1000. When she was outed online she eventually apologised on Twitter, not on BBC news. Her and others actions are clearly based on their determination to discredit the SNP. This type of propaganda, driven by their political agenda, is causing fear and alarm in Scotland, especially amongst the elderly and should be stamped out ASAP before someone loses their life because of such actions, that is if it hasn’t happened already. Whatever the case the days of the BBC thinking that it’s above the Law are numbered.
Isn’t the BBC tory owned? This will be interesting how it’s going to pan out astrologically. Would love a new age of transparency regarding politics and their misuse of tv propaganda because most of them are a bloody vile lot with not one shred of integrity and decency between all of them.
I think a lot of BBC staff such as Humphry’s are freelance contractors so technically they were self employed or directors of their own service company’s. UK equality legislation only applies to people who directly employed as employees. The BBC can terminate such peoples contracts when they expire but if they do it before then they have to play them the full price agreed in the contract.
Ironically one of the areas where women routinely earn more than men is the military since more women tend to be officers and men fill most of the lower ranks
I didn’t know that, Hugh, that women hold more high ranking jobs than men in the army. But saying that, the female officers won’t be earning more than the male officers? I imagine it would be equal? All lower ranking jobs in any workplace tend to pay a lot less than the senior jobs. It’s being in the same rank of any job and still being paid differently due to gender which is causing the problem.
‘the BBC’s customary intransigence and bureaucratic obfuscation,’ try saying that after a sherry or three!
The exploding mess of women issues coming to the surface and especially after the child sex abuse cases does fill me with hope that this is the universes way of cleaning out the closet. It has to be dealt with because it’s been festering since time immemorial. I know it’s my own silly opinion but I also think their is a conscious design behind it that intervenes at times and helps nudge the human race into the right direction, ultimately. If there was no consciousness behind our drive forward, I still think we’d be killing each other with pitchforks and stones. Quite often we show ourselves up for our petty ugliness, stupidity, and ego-centric arrogance. So, here’s to the celestial spring-cleaning!