Birte Meier

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Birte Meier (born 1971 ) is a German investigative journalist and television writer. She gained notoriety through a process for equal pay, which she leads against the ZDF .

job

After graduating from high school, Birte Meier studied social and business communication at the Berlin University of the Arts from 1991 . In 1993 she moved to the Free University of Berlin , where she studied North American Studies , Journalism and Modern History and graduated in 1998 with a Magistra Artium . A scholarship from the Free University of Berlin enabled her to study at the University of Chicago for two semesters in 1996/97 .

From April 1998 Meier worked for the production company Kobalt as an editor and author for the programs Polylux (ORB) and Tracks ( Arte ). Since 2000 she has published social and cultural articles as a freelance writer for various magazines from ARD , Arte, NDR and WDR . In addition, she wrote u. a. for the Frankfurter Rundschau and Berliner Zeitung . At a very early stage she became interested in newly emerging online formats, developed concepts, etc. a. for a knowledge portal.

From February 2005 to February 2007 Meier was a reporter for Spiegel-TV , then a permanent freelancer at ZDF , where she initially looked after the online content for the political magazine Frontal 21 . In 2008, she switched to the editorial team of Frontal 21 as a reporter , and since 2010 she has been an editor with special responsibility. She represented the boss on duty and the studio management in the ZDF studio in Singapore and regularly published investigative articles with extensive research together with colleagues.

As Frontal 21 editor she produced business reports and political background articles; So she shot the documentary "The Great Samwer Show - The Billion Businesses of the Zalando Boys" together with Christian Esser , uncovered with him the "Rent-a-Sozi" scandal of an SPD subsidiary, the appointments at SPD- Ministers for money, and reported on the massive destruction of returns on Amazon .

Awards

She has received various grants for her journalistic work , including research grants from the Franco-German Youth Office and the American Council on Germany as well as the journalist-in-residence grant from the Berlin Science Center for Social Research . In 2012 Meier took part in the media program of the International Media Center as a media ambassador for China - Germany to promote democratic journalism with a grant from the Robert Bosch Foundation .

Meier has received several awards for her work: In 2015 she and Christian Esser won the German Business Film Award for “The Great Samwer Show”. The documentation was also nominated for the Prix ​​Europa in 2015 and was on the shortlist for the Ernst Schneider Prize of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce for economic contributions. ProQuote Medien awarded Meier the Rose with Stachel media prize in 2017 for her courage in the fight for equal pay. In November 2018 she and Astrid Randerath and Christian Esser received the award for excellent business journalism from the Friedrich and Isabel Vogel Foundation for the contribution “Returns for the trash” . Meier was selected as a Thomas Mann Fellow by the Advisory Board of Thomas Mann House for a six-month work stay in Thomas Mann's former home in Los Angeles in 2020.

Together with Astrid Randerath, Christian Esser and Ilka Brecht , she received the Environmental Media Prize 2019 from Deutsche Umwelthilfe for the Frontal 21 report "Returns for garbage - Amazon junkyard" . For the Juliane Bartel Prize 2019 she was with Leonie Schöler and Christian Esser for the report "Kinder kriegen für die Rente" in the category documentation, report, feature, magazine article up to 10 min. nominated.

Legal dispute with ZDF about equal pay

Her preoccupation with social and economic issues led Meier to the subject of wage injustice between men and women. She found out that as a permanent freelancer within the editorial team, she was paid significantly less than male colleagues with the same status, the same range of tasks and even less professional experience. In 2015, she therefore sued the ZDF for pay discrimination and demanded the same pay as her male colleagues.

In February 2017, Meier lost her lawsuit at the labor court in Berlin . Meier had not agreed to a settlement proposal to leave the editorial office in return for a severance payment .

With legal support from the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), the proceedings were brought before the Berlin State Labor Court . In the course of the proceedings, Meier collected evidence that twelve men with comparable tasks were paid more than they were, without this being explained by objective criteria such as professional experience, length of service or training.

On February 5, 2019, her lawsuit was also dismissed in the second instance . According to the state labor court, the journalist was unable to prove that she received a lower salary than her male colleagues because she was a woman and was therefore discriminated against. Meier was therefore not entitled to compensation payments from ZDF and would have to bear the costs of the proceedings.

Meier also based her lawsuit against ZDF on the Entgelttransparenzgesetz , which has been in force in Germany since 2017 and provides for a right to information. However, in the opinion of the regional labor court, the law does not apply to her because, due to her status as a permanent freelancer at ZDF, she is only considered an employee-like person and therefore cannot request information about the salaries of her colleagues.

Birte Meier has in May 2019 the Federal Labor Court in Erfurt revision inserted and leave to appeal. The non-admission complaint was rejected. Meier has lodged a constitutional complaint against this before the Federal Constitutional Court.

The Federal Labor Court ruled on the revision of the Remuneration Transparency Act on June 25, 2020 and gave the plaintiff Birte Meier the right to the ZDF. In the judgment it says: “According to § 10 Paragraph 1 EntgTranspG, the plaintiff can demand information from the defendant about the criteria and procedures for determining the remuneration, since she works as a freelancer for the defendant 'employee' within the meaning of Section 5 (2) no. 1 EntgTranspG and thus employees in the sense of Section 10 (1) sentence 1 of the EntgeltTranspG is. "

Memberships

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birte Meier on LinkedIn.
  2. ↑ International Media Center (IMC): IMC | Scholarship holders. Retrieved June 19, 2019 .
  3. ^ German economic film award for "Frontal 21" documentary by ZDF: ZDF Presseportal. Retrieved February 5, 2019 .
  4. ^ Prix ​​Europa. In: Festival Catalog 2015. Retrieved on February 5, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Ernst Schneider Prize: Shortlist Ernst Schneider Prize 2015. In: Ernst Schneider Prize. July 8, 2015, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  6. ↑ ProQuote media: ProQuote awards prizes with feeling. February 19, 2017, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Four prizes awarded for outstanding business journalism. November 7, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Thomas Mann Fellows selected for 2020. VATMH, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Deutsche Umwelthilfe awards UmweltMedienpreis 2019. Le Matin, November 13, 2019, accessed on November 29, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Juliane Bartel Media Prize 2019, nominations. Retrieved November 29, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Prof. Dr. Markus Stoffels: ZDF reporter fails with lawsuit for equal pay. Verlag CHBeck, February 3, 2017, accessed on February 5, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Simone Schmollack: From a formal point of view, there was nothing. taz, February 1, 2017, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Anna von Garmissen: Leaving good people hanging in the wage gap makes no sense. kress news, February 8, 2017, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Deutschlandfunk Kultur: ZDF reporter Birte Meier fails with a lawsuit. February 1, 2017, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  15. ^ Society for Freedom Rights eV: GFF supports equal pay lawsuit by a ZDF journalist. Retrieved February 5, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Verena Mayer: No right to equal pay. sueddeutsche.de, February 5, 2019, accessed on February 5, 2019 .
  17. ^ Anne Fromm: Not employed enough. taz, February 5, 2019, accessed on February 5, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Christine Dankbar: New law does not help - ZDF reporter fails with lawsuit against wage discrimination. Berliner Zeitung, February 5, 2019, accessed on February 5, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Angelika Knop: "A slap in the face" for women with the right to equal pay - journalist fails in court. Watch-Salon - The jb blog, February 5, 2019, accessed on February 6, 2019 .
  20. ^ Equal pay lawsuit against ZDF - appeal and non-admission complaint filed with the Federal Labor Court. Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte eV, accessed on June 19, 2019 .
  21. ^ Equal pay lawsuit: equal pay for equal work. Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte eV, October 15, 2019, accessed on June 16, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Right to information according to the Entgelttransparenzgesetz. Federal Labor Court, June 25, 2020, accessed on June 25, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Meier, Birte
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and television writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1971