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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   29200 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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Please ignore the context of this tweet (Elon reXt it, so it is CW fire): https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1879273049075458217

What I instead found curious was the usage of "GM (Global Majority) formerly known as BAME (Black, Asian, Middle East)" which I had never read before. But I am not British. Wiki has a short article about the term, maybe it will be longer in future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_majority&oldid=1257733067

The term was used as early as 2003 as a way to challenge the normativity of a white majority or Eurocentric perspective […]
In 2020, the Church of England created an Archbishops' Anti-Racism Taskforce … "United Kingdom Minority Ethnic/Global Majority Heritage" (UKME/GMH) as more appropriate than BAME.[16] The language of "Global Majority Heritage" is seen as a reminder that minorities often come from a majority culture before migrating to the UK.
In November 2022, the Labour-run Westminster City Council committed to replace BAME with "global majority."

It seems to still be fringe/local use, but I wonder if it will be the new preferred term. Being part of a minority sounds small/miserable, you are an outsider. But being part of the global majority, now that sounds grand and legitimate, you are the demos.

The job itself seems like a sinecure and I expect any candidate - GM or otherwise - applying would be disappointed. £65,000 for a secretary in the UK is an extremely high wage unless they’re literally the personal assistant to the CEO of a FTSE 100 or something. They already have someone in mind.

The salary advertised here is at the grade for entry (or occasionally mid) level management roles, on the central London local govt pay scale. The Head of CEx office position (usual "right hand man" role) will be paid £70-£90k at WCC, and would be this person's line manager. Usually an EA role at Westminster Council would be paid £35-45k. This post will almost certainly be at the bottom of the payscale advertised (standard way it works in local govt. with roles at this level) and £54k for the CEx EA starts to sound more reasonable.

The DEI stuff is standard boilerplate WCC use on all their adverts (still a bit mad). I'd be very surprised if it was sinecured, more likely a way for the CEx to get someone with a bit of brains into his office by using a budgeted role who can fill in with doing some other stuff. Worth remembering too that WCC is the richest council by far and can afford to do this type of thing easily.

"Head of Office" is used in the UK where Americans would use "Chief of Staff".

Chief Executive of a British council is equivalent to a US city manager - they are a permanent employee who runs the city under the direction of the majority leadership of the elected council. Total population of the City of Westminster is 211 thousand.

So in US terms the position being advertised is deputy chief of staff to the city manager of a municipality with a population (within municipal borders) of c.200k in the core of a large metro area, with the appropriate pay adjustment for a high cost of living area.

It’s not really deputy chief of staff, that’s a completely different hiring track. This pay band is like a mid-level fast-tracked civil servant’s pay for an executive assistant job title working 36 hours a week (ie much, much less than the example of the FTSE 100 C-level EA, who might be on £90-100k but is also working 60+ hours and travelling). Chief of Staffs don’t do scheduling or hiring (they have their own teams / assistants to do that), this person is going to be bringing in cups of tea and biscuits when the CEO of the council meets with politicians and business leaders.

Nah this won't be a teas and biscuits job, they have separate staff for that, the catering team are usually at the beck and call of senior civil servants at City Hall.

You're right that this isn't a "deputy chief of staff", but I'd be pretty sure they'll be doing slightly more challenging work than pure diary management - the casework part in the ad gives a clue. Still overpaid vs. standard EA at Westminster though.

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