A BBC presenter, Samira Ahmed who presents the BBC programme Newswatch, has won her sex discrimination case in which she argued that her pay should have matched that of Jeremy Vine for his work on Points of View. Jeremy Vine is paid £3,000 per episode while Ms Ahmed was only paid £465, both magazine programmes have a duration of 15 minutes each. The journalist had argued she was owed almost £700,000 in back pay.
The panel of three tribunal judges found that the only real difference was that Newswatch only allowed viewers to discuss the news, this was deemed by the tribunal as being a minor difference and that it had no impact on the skills and experience required to present the programmes or the work that the two presenters carried out.
The BBC argued that there was additional pressure placed on Mr Vine because he was presenting a show which had previously been presented by other well-known celebrities such as Terry Wogan.
The tribunal dismissed the BBC’s argument, finding in favour of Ms Ahmed.
Following her victory in this latest case, Ms Ahmed went on to comment:
”No woman wants to have to take action against their own employer. I’m now looking forward to continuing to do my job, to report on stories and not being one.’’
Equal pay is the legal right for men and women to be paid the same for:
- Doing the same, or similar, jobs
- Doing work that has been rated as "equivalent", or in the same grade
- Doing work of "equal value", where jobs might be different but require a similar level of skill
Apart from salaries, equal pay also includes employee benefits like holidays and pension contributions, as well as company cars and bonuses.
It has been part of UK law since the 1970 Equal Pay Act, and is now also part of the Equality Act 2010. It means all employees are entitled to equal pay, regardless of whether they are on full-time, part-time, or temporary contracts.
