04 Informed


News Update


Five-figure sum won on unequal pay claim as chapels take action


Te scandal of the BBC sofa revelations of unequal pay at the corporation being pursued by the union has led to other chapels taking action and members winning pay increases. A grievance submission at Newsquest


resulted in a female member achieving justice with a five-figure compensation sum to fix the shortfall to her salary and pension contributions over several years. Chris Morley, Northern & Midlands senior organiser, said: “It did take two bites of the cherry because the company initially put up a remedy that would have short-changed the member by about a third. But an appeal won the day and full financial compensation – but no word of an apology or acknowledgment that our member had been the victim of discrimination because of her gender. Sounds familiar?” It is the absence of transparent and published pay structures which makes it


where the company, when challenged, took a more positive and helpful approach and worked to remedy the situation. Te union has won other claims, but members have requested confidentiality. Elsewhere chapels are running equal pay surveys, work continues at the FT and RTÉ and a positive meeting was held at Reuters. So far, the media companies appear


difficult for chapels to pursue suspected pay discrepancies. In the Newsquest case, the chapel had a good idea how much a male colleague who did the same work was being paid. But, as the case suggests, the pervasive culture of editor’s discretion on pay and lack of credible accounting on salaries mean that the tip of the iceberg discovered at the BBC is very likely to be replicated in the newspaper sector. It was a happier situation at CNN,


to be leaving it right to the 4 April deadline to publish their pay gender data, as required by law, but news agency PA’s recent figures show its workforce consists of 63.9 per cent men and 36.1 per cent women. Tere was a small gender pay gap, but men were geting much higher bonuses and two-thirds of the best-paid jobs were filled by men. Lloyd Embley, editor-in-chief of the


Mirror titles, has already admited that Trinity Mirror’s figures will reveal an “embarrassing” gender pay gap because senior positions are dominated by men.


Flawed freelance reports Reactions to the UK government’s response to the Taylor report on self-employed rights were at most lukewarm, with Frances O’Grady, general secretary, of the TUC, saying it would not end exploitative working practices, 1.8 million workers would still be without key rights at work. Séamus Dooley, NUJ assistant secretary, said the Irish government review of self-employment


arrangements “missed the target and failed to address key issues about labour rights and social protection”. He has been appointed to ITUC commitee to review Te Future of Work, an International Labour Organisation initiative.


In Good Company On Valentine’s Day the NUJ held a love-in for local news, with members, branches and chapels encouraged


to tweet support for independent, quality, ethical journalism. A DM motion had highlighted the widely supported and highly effective 24-hour strike by NUJ members in 1985, known as the Real Lives strike, in protest at censorship and in defence of editorial independence at the BBC. It called on the union to raise awareness of the benefits for society of independent and ethical journalism as well as the


need to highlight examples of journalists taking individual or collective action in its defence. htps://www.nuj.org.uk/ news/ingoodcompany/


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