by ALBERTO FERRIGOLO
Rai hires “level 1” multimedia programmers, entrusting the task of selecting them to a private multinational, is the union’s accusation. If confirmed, the news risks producing a significant shock in the system of the public news company, frustrating internal professionalism and ambitions.
In a statement dated 5 May from the RSU Rai, the unitary trade union representation of the Radio Management, we read the following: “We have received news of the hiring directly as first-level multimedia programmers of several staff units with the role of director, through a selection curated by the Adecco company”. Adecco is a multinational personnel selection company based in Gloattbrugg, Switzerland, in the Canton of Zurich, which finds generalist, specialized and career personnel, from banks to the electronics, distribution, chemical, pharmaceutical and telecommunications, but also in the world of administration and healthcare as well as in the IT, engineering and accounting sectors.
transparent process
All this bypassing the demands of Rai staff, fair contract agreements, stabilization of temporary workers, unemployment lists. Without “the recognition of a clear and transparent career path in compliance with roles and tasks, in the absence of production models” requested and expected for years by internal staff, “this practice falls like a tile”.
The questions of the RSU revolve around two issues: the first is whether the objective of the Dying Horse company “is still to enhance internal experiences and professionalism” and, secondarily, whether evaluation on the one hand (assessment) and the activities of publishing job offers (job posting) “are they still tools that the Company intends to use seriously, or are they just fig leaves to cover outsourcing of personnel selection, perhaps using companies that have their core business”, in this case Adecco precisely.
specific tasks
The RSU Rai calls for a top meeting on Visual Radio “to define the production model, the roles and specific tasks and the consequent staffing needs”. And it reserves the right to evaluate “consequent actions in the absence of rapid feedback”.
To lend support to the Rai RSU, the national secretariats of Snater and Conf.Sal-Libersind also intervened on 15 May, the first being the autonomous Radio and Television Telecommunications Union, the second being the general confederation of independent Rai, TV and Entertainment workers’ unions. Both define the news of the hiring of “some multimedia programmers directly at level 1” based on a selection “managed by the Adecco company” as “an aggravating factor that deserves immediate responses”.
internal conductors
This press release then goes into listing the strong discontent of the entire staff of the Rai company regarding issues “that require urgent clarifications and solutions” such as, indeed, the workforce, the production and organizational models, the industrial, editorial, as well as the direct consequences of the real estate plan.
The two unions denounce that in addition to “the clear idea of humiliating the internal drivers (who, let us remember, are the true professionals of the vehicle) we are faced with real management contracts. Contracts that are causing a constant erosion of ratings, public disaffection and a shift away from the channel’s main mission.” The result is that “difficulties are also recorded among the administrative staff and editorial figures such as multimedia programmers”, especially, but not only in Saxa Rubra, where “the workers find themselves overburdened but unfortunately ‘children of a god minor’; days of smart working considered as a gift to be given sparingly, career paths blocked because they are concentrated on the journalistic staff to whom most of the economic resources flow. The litmus test is represented by the increase in individual disputes brought into play.”
(in the photo, the Rai headquarters in viale Mazzini)
