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Why has BBC Sacked Me
gemma-the-husky
Posts: 18,116 Forum Member
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DM story today
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2593886/SEBASTIAN-SHAKESPEARE-Why-BBC-sacked-asks-black-TV-presenter.html
perhaps he just isn't very good. not just assume it's based on race, eh?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2593886/SEBASTIAN-SHAKESPEARE-Why-BBC-sacked-asks-black-TV-presenter.html
perhaps he just isn't very good. not just assume it's based on race, eh?
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Perhaps he needs to check his date of birth? He is, to be quite honest, getting on a bit and perhaps that was the deciding factor? Keep a young handsome chap/chapette and let the coffin dodgers go?
Not racist, just ageist then.
You'll be a 'coffin dodger' yourself one day.
TBH, it is more than likely an age thing rather than a competancy or race thing.
I'm not sure it's fair to call a company "ageist" if they let an older person go in favour of a younger person. It may not sound nice but there may be tangible reasons for doing so.
If you have 10 people and you need to get rid of a few, it may make sense to keep those who are still in their prime or are more appealing to an audience over someone past their prime. That's unfortunately life, it is a business at the end of the day, not a charity.
And with the BBC slimming down under DQF .
.. I can well imagine that there are fewer places for people like him ...
So he is under notice of redundancy ...
The BBC has a very long process to try to redeploy people
But at the end he may very well be unable to find a equivalent post.
I hope he finds another job soon,
Whether a business or a charity, as an employer, the Equality Act applies. And age is one of its categories.
Interesting implications in that article.
Delivering quality first aims to save £700m per year but how
They also sacked a white woman
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9781097/BBC-criticised-by-radio-presenter-after-she-is-sacked-by-text.html
They are clearly trying to preserve the white male privilege.
Well that depends on whether age was the lone deciding factor. In practice there is more to a decision than age.
For example, a person could be more desirable to keep for reasons x, y and z (which have nothing to do with age), but the reason why x, y and z are true happen to be age.
The Equality Act protects prevents people from being discriminated against due to age, race etc. it is not job protection against meritocracy.
For example, an older person can find that in the situation of redundancy selection that they are up against someone who performs better or is more clued up / up to date with things; or even simply more relevant. That can be especially true with things such as TV where someone being more popular or interesting to an audience is important (as that affects the performance of the stuff they are involved in).
In a practical sense the person who performs better and is more clued up/up to date is better for the job so the other will face redundancy due to those reasons (which are perfectly legitimate and legal).
Fact may be that age is the cause of their lower performance or lack of being up to date.
Was he BBC staff? In which case then a redundancy process would have been followed and he would know why the BBC were making his position redendant - and there are cut backs at the BBC.
However, it was more likely that he was freelance given he works at Middlesex University. In which case he may still have lost his job (not redundancy in this case) as the cut backs will fall on freelance staff, who are employed on an as needed basis,, first before any staff posts are lost.
And I didn't mention black or age once.
I bet he was on a renewable contract and they just haven't renewed it. Not many people in the media these days have a job for life.
I have never seen the word 'Bame' btw and wonder if the Mail journalist misheard the term BME.
I've seen it written like that a couple of times. They include the 'and'.
Ah - BBC London - that might explain why I've never heard of nor recognise this "top journo".
And I watch BBC London and had to look him up as he isn't on that often.
Pot meet kettle.
Surely it's illegal though? I know it's illegal under the Employment Equality Acts here in Ireland, but I don't know about the UK Act. My lecturer only talks about Irish law but I wouldn't trust everything she says anyway. She's a strange woman.
There appears to be many reasons they could have let him go as stated in the aims of their restructuring.
Part of that is to move away from london and reducing duplicate expertise. This seems more relevant than the implication that he is old or a minority.
It would depend on the job, if the person was for instance physically no longer able to carry out their job and that may be due to age then a company cannot keep them and hire someone else to do the job for them, not all companies can move people around sometimes they have no alternative but to terminate a contract. However if you sacked someone just because they were older and for no other reason then that is illegal.
Well the inability to no longer carry out their job is a ground for fair dismissal (under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977-2007 here in Ireland, again not sure about UK no thanks to idiot lecturer) but just sacking someone purely on the basis of age is definitely discrimination. Companies are also allowed to let people go when restructuring. I must admit a lot of employment law stuff is common sense. I don't need any idiot lecturers to tell me
Talk about abusing laws that were designed to protect people against real racism. All this crying wolf will end in people not being taken seriously when a genuine attack has happened.
I don't know if that article has been edited, and certainly race is mentioned there, but I cannot see where he is suggesting that he has been sacked because of his colour.