BBC China editor resigns in protest over gender pay inequality

Carrie Gracie, the BBC’s China Editor has abruptly resigned from her post in protest of what she calls her company’s “secretive and illegal pay structure” where women are paid far less than men for the same work.

“With great regret, I have left my post as China editor to speak out publicly on a crisis of trust at the BBC,” Gracie writes in a must-read open letter to BBC listeners published on her personal blog on Sunday evening.

“The BBC belongs to you, the licence fee payer. I believe you have a right to know that it is breaking equality law and resisting pressure for a fair and transparent pay structure.”

Last summer, the BBC was forced to make public salary disclosures which revealed that about two-thirds of its employees making more than £150,000 ($203,000) were men, while none of the organization’s top seven earners were women.

Gracie has been working at the BBC for three decades, mostly inside China. As one of the most well-respected foreign correspondents working in the country, she was offered the newly-created post of BBC China Editor in 2013 and writes that she only accepted the challenging position after insisting to her bosses that she be paid the same as her male colleagues.

Instead, Gracie learned from the disclosures that the BBC’s two male international editors earned “at least 50% more” than their female counterparts.

“Despite the BBC’s public insistence that my appointment demonstrated its commitment to gender equality, and despite my own insistence that equality was a condition of taking up the post, my managers had yet again judged that women’s work was worth much less than men’s,” writes Gracie.

The salary disclosures of the BBC’s top earners revealed that US editor Jon Sopel earned £200,000-£249,999, while Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen earned £150,000-£199,999. Gracie was not listed in the disclosures, meaning that she made less than £150,000. In her open letter, Gracie does not state her own salary, however, back in 2009, she replied frankly to a politician’s question on air by revealing that she was making £92,000.

Gracie writes that when she insisted to her bosses that all international editors be paid the same amount, they responded by instead offering her a big pay raise, which still remained “far short of equality,” stating that there were differences between the editor roles which justified the pay gap, but failing to explain just what those specific differences were.

She adds that up to 200 women working at the BBC have made pay complaints in the last six months, and yet the company has failed to admit that there is even a problem, while carrying out incomplete reviews into the issue. Her outrage at the situation led to her decision, as one of the organization’s most senior editors, to take a stand.

For BBC women this is not just a matter of one year’s salary or two. Taking into account disadvantageous contracts and pension entitlements, it is a gulf that will last a lifetime. Many of the women affected are not highly paid ‘stars’ but hard-working producers on modest salaries. Often women from ethnic minorities suffer wider pay gaps than the rest.

This is not the gender pay gap that the BBC admits to. It is not men earning more because they do more of the jobs which pay better. It is men earning more in the same jobs or jobs of equal value. It is pay discrimination and it is illegal.

Gracie warns the BBC that if it does not soon address the pay gap issue it will experience “an exodus of female talent at every level.” She says that she will be leaving her role as China Editor in protest and returning to her former post in the TV newsroom where she expects to “be paid equally.”

She concludes her letter by writing:

It is painful to leave my China post abruptly and to say goodbye to the team in the BBC’s Beijing bureau. But most of them are brilliant young women. I don’t want their generation to have to fight this battle in the future because my generation failed to win it now.

To women of any age in any workplace who are confronting pay discrimination, I wish you the solidarity of a strong sisterhood and the support of male colleagues.

It is a century since women first won the right to vote in Britain. Let us honour that brave generation by making this the year we win equal pay.

In response to Gracie’s open letter, the BBC released the following statement:

Fairness in pay is vital A significant number of organisations have now published their gender pay figures showing that we are performing considerably better than many and are well below the national average.

Alongside that, we have already conducted a independent judge led audit of pay for rank and file staff which showed ‘no systemic discrimination against women’.

A separate report for on air staff will be published in the not too distant future.

Gracie’s stand for equal pay has been met with an immense outpouring of support from her colleagues, listeners, and readers; mixed with a wave of outrage and disappointment at how this is the way that we are losing an outstanding China correspondent with a wealth of experience and knowledge that few can match.

If you haven’t already, you should really take the time to check out Gracie’s “White Horse Village” series, which follows the transformation of a rural community outside of Chongqing into a booming city. Last year, Gracie also told the story of the rise and fall of Bo Xilai in podcast form in “Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel,” while finding the time to present “Tales from the New Silk Road,” talking to people from around the world about China’s new pet project.

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