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20
Nov
2012
20:43
Redundancy fears and anger at RTVE
Por DIAGONAL English

By Raúl F. Millares / Translation: Susana Macías Pascua

‘I’ve been dismissed’. One of the last to speak these words was Anna Bosch, one of those faces and voices that give TV news its proverbial familiarity. Bosch has been foreign correspondent in London for TVE (Spanish abbreviation for Spanish TV) since August 2009, but as she admitted in her now famous tweet: “They can give orders at the point of a finger and fire you at the point of a finger.”

The list of renowned names and faces that are vanishing from TV screens has kept growing since the end of June, when Julio Samoano, from Telemadrid (regional TV channel, widely accused of patronizing the Government’s party), assumed the role of director of news with a promise launched also by Twitter: “I’ll work out of my skin for a TVE with plural, objective and top-quality news”. Soon after the ‘purge’ began and Samoano is still in full possession of his skin. This term, “purge”, quickly caught on and it is repeated very persistently when speaking with the staff. The exits of Ana Pastor (Los desayunos – breakfast news show) and Xabier Fortes (La noche en 24 horas – evening news show) drew a little too much attention, and the new director of the board, Leopoldo González-Echenique, had to appear before Parliament to refute the existence of a policy of ‘ethnic’ cleansing. The bloodbath on the radio also has left a trail of well-known names that will no longer be heard on RNE (Spanish abbreviation for National Radio of Spain). Cases like Juan Ramón Lucas (En días como hoy) or Javier Gallego (Carne Cruda) have captured the attention of the media, but the denied purge shows signs of spreading to the rest of the staff, who do not have familiar names or famous faces.

The alarm bells have been sounded by the union section of Worker’s Commissions (CCOO is the Spanish abbreviation) that claims to have reliable information about the board’s plans “for the dismissal of 1,800 workers”. The channel denies that there will be large scale redundancies, but union sources consulted by DIAGONAL have reaffirmed their predictions. What is certain is that RTVE faces further cost adjustments of more than 50 million euros for 2013, this in addition to the reduction of 204.8 million in costs in the current exercise. For next year, management hopes to obtain sponsorship deals and sales of 28.3 million Euros, leaving the definitive budget at 941 million Euros, 24.7 million less than in 2012.

Wage cuts

 

Many of the staff´s worries stem from these figures. The board will have admitted to the employee representatives its intention to reduce by 25% the wage bill of the corporation (this being the main budgetary expense of the entity, accounting for 40% of the total annual budget). How then to undertake a cutback, representing a quarter of a company’s the wage bill, whilst maintaining employee numbers? A strained atmosphere in the editorial departments has turned RTVE into a strange place where journalists do not feel they can speak out. “You´re not publishing that”; “Don´t use my name” or “I cannot tell you who that was” are undesirable phrases to the ear of any journalist; however it is now normal in RTVE to hear them from the mouth of its professionals. “The most concerned are the contractors”, maintains R., one of the employees of RTVE who prefers to remain anonymous. He is referring to the half thousand out of 6.400 workers who are not on permanent contracts and are therefore much easier to dispense with. “People who have two years of practice behind them are not having their contracts renewed”, he condemns.

“Some of them sense strange movements, like the merger of the website editorial with that of the TV: sold as an attempt to encourage multi-screen innovations, but the fear is that this will lead to lay-offs and transferrals of people from the web to the TV. There are even those who see it as a way of putting the web also under the command of Samoano”, explains V., another editor who prefers to omit his name. “We are all scared although there are only rumours and suppositions. We have even considered that conjectures about large scale redundancies may be intended only to soften the blow of intended salary reductions and make us feel that it has not been so bad after all”, he adds.

Along with these fears, a general sensation of anger is occurring. “We were doing a good job, and everything they are doing is so brazen...”, says M., another experienced journalist in the entity, one of these familiar faces not on our screens anymore. She does not even have strength enough to answer: “I am very upset and I’d rather not say anything else. I hope you understand”.

Editorials merge

At the beginning of October, the editorial of RTVE.es’ web (which had editorial independence up to then) without any notice given, fell under the command of Channel 24H of TVE. This integration provoked a harsh reaction from the Interactive Media News Board. As they point out, nobody informed them of the decision until “30 minutes before it was communicated to rest of the staff”, nor had they been consulted in advanced. The Board shares the same fears that the staff consulted by DIAGONAL do and hopes that this incorporation “not be used to cover the possible staff shortage in the Channel 24 H and that it should not be a way to assert publishing control over the information of RTVE.es. It has been explained to us that in the short term there will not be big changes. Nevertheless, we know nothing of the long term: what exactly will be the role of the editors”.

[This article was originally published in Spanish on October 31th 2012]

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DIAGONAL English

DIAGONAL is a grassroots communication project based in Madrid. We print a biweekly newspaper and run this website with daily updates. We only accept adds from social collectives (cooperatives, non-profit or kindred associations) and exist thanks to a large base of suscriptors that collaborate with us. If you would like to help with translations or editorial suggestions, please contact english [at] diagonalperiodico.net.

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