Barricades

The Times reports that 364 BBC employees have signed a letter of support for Karen Martin, the radio newsroom editor who's turned down a promotion to Deputy Editor on the grounds her fellow Deputy will be paid £7k more.

The letter to BBC DG Lord Hall says “Karen won promotion in a fair selection process. Her experience suggests women can be promoted but will be perpetually underpaid because they haven’t previously been promoted and properly paid. How can women ever catch up? At what point does the BBC correct historical gender pay inequalities? Now is as good a time as any.”

Meanwhile news management are standing firm. Fran Unsworth, Director of News, in an email to staff said "Equal pay is a legal entitlement to be paid the same if you are doing equal work. That does not mean, however, that everyone gets paid exactly the same for the same job — but rather that the reason for any difference must be unconnected to gender.”

This one will run and run.