Scots journalist Andrew Marr is at the centre of fresh row about the "inaccurate" portrayal of how a workforce was treated during the Grunwick dispute of the 1970s.
The BBC has banned the re-broadcast of an interview with the Scots journalist on Radio 2's The Jeremy Vine Show who was on discussing his book Elizabethans: How Modern Britain Was Forged.
During the discussion Mr Marr referred to one of the book's subjects Jayaben Desai, who was a prominent leader of the two-year strike at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories.
She resigned from the factory after being ordered to work overtime, and instigated a strike among the mainly Asian and female workforce.
During a decade of industrial unrest, the Grunwick dispute became a cause célèbre of trade unionism and labour relations law, and at its height involved thousands of trade unionists and police in confrontations.
Thre were over 500 arrests on the picket line and violence associated the strike led by Soputh Asian women workers.
Police Clash With Grunwick Protestors, 1977
But the son of the late George Ward, the owner of Grunwick, complained that the discussion repeated a statement about Mr Ward’s treatment of his workforce which "were in conflict" with the findings of the inquiry conducted by Lord Scarman, and for which the BBC had apologised when they were broadcast "on previous occasions".
The BBC refused to further clarify what the particular objection about the October 6 discussion was about, but the Scarman inquiry ultimately concluded that physical working conditions in the company before the strike were good and that although the rates of pay were low prior to the strike, the company increased financial benefits paid to workers in November 1976 and April 1977 until the rates of pay were broadly comparable with, and in some respects, slightly better than, those paid by comparable firms in the industry.
On the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on December 2, 2016 and January 10, 2017 reference was made to the Grunwick dispute and in one programme it was stated that management had been racist, calling workers "monkeys". The BBC in a correction and clarification said then that "this was not correct". And on January 10, it was said that the management lost and the striking women won.
The BBC said that in fact the strikers called off their action on July 14, 1978 without their demands for collective bargaining being met.
The BBC considered the latest complaint in the light of the its editorial standards of due accuracy.
As the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit was presented with no evidence which would have allowed it to discount Lord Scarman’s conclusions, it accepted that the statements in question "would have misled listeners and did not meet the BBC’s standards of due accuracy".
It concluded: "The finding was reported to the board of BBC Radio and discussed with the programme-makers concerned. The inaccurate material will not be re-broadcast."
George Ward, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 79, was himself of Anglo-Indian extraction born in New Delhi in 1933, the son of a wealthy accountant with the Indian Railways.
In 2007, he sued for libel over an article that he and his company were racist towards their Asian employees, and says this has gravely damaged their reputations, and led to embarrassment and distress.
He said at the time that although workers took strike action at Grunwick in 1976, there were never any findings of racism against him or his company. As he is Anglo Indian, the slur that he is racist, or would permit racist behaviour is deeply offensive and upsetting, he says.
Jayaben Desai received a presentation by unions during the strike. Source: BBC
He then said that a previous allegation of racism, in a 1982 programme, was quickly retracted by Channel 4.
The BBC is currently dealing with a new round of complaints about perceived bias by Scots journalist and presenter Andrew Marr involving the First Minister.
It has already dismissed three other tranches of bias complaints in the past two months, including over 100 about his interview with Nicola Sturgeon on November 29.
Now he has been the subject of another set of complaints about his January 24 broadcast over bias not just against the First Minister, but also the health secretary Matt Hancock, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy and Israel.
The BBC said they have received a total of 115 complaints about bias. It has not divulged how many of those complaints were about his interview with the First Minister, who was confronted over her possible resignation in the face of allegations she may have misled the Scottish Parliament about the Alex Salmond affair.
In the broadcast, Ms Sturgeon appeared angry after being questioned over her possible resignation in the face of the possibility that that she may have known about harassment allegations made against her predecessor Alex Salmond earlier than she had claimed.
She insisted she did not mislead parliament about when she learned of the allegations.
A committee of MSPs is investigating the government's handling of two harassment claims against the former first minister, after he successfully challenged the complaints process in court.
In what one commentator described as a "car crash" interview she was also pressed on the 'failures' of her vaccine rollout strategy. Mr Marr grilled Ms Sturgeon on the why the vaccine rollout in Scotland has been "so much slower" when compared to England.
The publicly-funded broadcaster previously dismissed complaints of bias by Mr Marr against the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in what was one of the most complained-about shows of the year which aired on November 29.
During that show, the Scots presenter suggested there was a "gap" between reality and her public claims about both the Alex Salmond scandal, her government's coronavirus record and the state of education in Scotland.
Mr Marr was then accused of presenting an attitude towards the First Minister which some compared to an “attack dog” who was aiming not for a political interview but a “character assassination”.
At the end of January, the BBC dismissed a tranche of some 2000 complaints over perceived bias against the Prime Minister Boris Johnson on The Andrew Marr Show on January 3.
Complaints stated that Mr Marr showed bias against the government, interrupted Mr Johnson too much through 'intrusive interrogation' or were unhappy the Scots journalist summarised his interview with the Prime Minister as "an Englishman talking to a Scot".
Others complained that Mr Marr appeared to be stating an opinion in questions about the possibility of a Scottish independence referendum.
But the BBC stood by Mr Marr's impartiality in response to the criticisms over the Boris Johnson interview.
At the end of December the BBC dismissed a fresh set of complaints about December 13 edition of The Andrew Marr Show - raising concerns that the presenter appeared to be defending the government over Brexit while interrupting former Labour leader Ed Milliband too much.
At one point the Glasgow-born journalist and author described as "mealy mouthed" Mr Milliband's comment that Labour would have to look at the detail of any trade deal with the EU before deciding to fully support it.
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