ORGANISERS IN SIPTU have said the union will oppose efforts by RTÉ to outsource and privatise portions of the production of the Late Late Show and Fair City as it believes structural changes are being “forced on staff without consultation”.

On Tuesday RTÉ published its future planning strategy which will secure the broadcaster a €20 million State bailout after months of scandal. The plan proposed 400 job cuts, a limit on presenter pay and the outsourcing of production work.

But workers’ union Siptu has said it will oppose the outsourcing plans by RTÉ and believes that the station moving towards private ownership while “eroding conditions of employment”.

The ‘New Direction Strategy’ was drafted after number of previous reviews into the broadcaster, a Government probe after the presenter payment scandal last year and a number of in-house ‘town hall’ meetings conducted by Director General Kevin Backhurst.

However, SIPTU member and RTÉ Broadcast Engineer Ciaran Kelly said the proposals amount to a “kick in the teeth to the ordinary workers at the station”, who have “gone the extra mile” to ensure programmes made it to air during the scandal.

Kelly said: “This is a company that staff have given their working lives to. If management believes that it will be allowed to erode conditions of employment that were long fought for and hard-won it is seriously mistaken.”

The 400 jobs cuts will be achieved by the station through a voluntary exit programme, and is estimated to cost €50 million. The strategy also seeks to reduce the percentage of operating costs RTÉ spends on employing people to 51% by 2024 and 45% in 2029.

The strategy also seeks to invest in more productions outside of Co Dublin.

RTÉ plans to partially divest from Dublin and invest in other parts of the country over the next few years. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Chairperson of Siptu’s RTÉ Committee, Zac Sloper, said the union does not have confidence in the current management and that it opposes the proposed changes under the strategy as it believes they do not serve the interests of RTÉ staff. 

Sloper said that Siptu is be seeking to meet with RTÉ management to raise these objections. “SIPTU members will not be left to pay the price for problems created by RTE management,” he added.

The issue was discussed in the Dáil yesterday by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, who lashed out at Tánaiste Micheál Martin over the proposed changes.

“The net result of [the] scandal, of the bad behaviour and excessive pay to a tiny group of people we learn, is the outsourcing and privatisation of the two flagship programmes of RTÉ, Fair City and The Late Late Show,” he said. 

Speaking on RTÉ’s Radio on Tuesday, the station’s boss said that both programmes were made in buildings that needed maintenance which would be too costly to complete and the plan was to close the facilities for good. 

Bakhurst claimed that RTÉ “won’t be able to maintain” the studios after another five years and said the the station would be considering all of the options at it’s disposal, including the outsourcing of both shows to independent contractors.

The strategy includes plans to cut down facilities in the station’s HQ in Donnybrook, Dublin 4 and build new studio facilities will be made in Co Cork.