TVR restructuring plan saga: credits for compensatory payments and unjustified layoffs accusation

Cristina Blanaru Media

Romanian State TV wants to contract an Euro 10-15M loan to give compensatory payments to the 1,000 people that will be laid off during the restructuring process, Mediafax writes, quoting Valentin Nicolau, member in TVR’s management board representing the employees.

During a hearing at Parliament’s Culture Committees, he said that the compensatory salaries are “a fiction” because there’s no money and efforts are being made in order to contract a commercial credit from a bank to pay the mentioned amount.

Also, on what concerns the layoffs, Nicolau said that TVR will fire 1,000 people on unknown criteria, but there will still remain “the bad employees, the lazy ones, the ones with sponsors, the mistresses, the wives or the ones having medical certificates”, as the quoted news agency wrote. Nicolau also affirmed that, within TVR, there is for years “a huge quantity of lack of work” and a huge salary inequity, the institution having reduced performances and non-existent quality standards.

Considering the accusations made by Nicolau related to layoffs criteria during the Parliamentary hearings, another member in TVR’s management board, Claudiu Brinzan, said he will ask publicly that his colleague to say who are exactly the people he reminded during the hearings

In what concerns the credit needed to pay the people that will be laid off, Claudiu Saftoiu said, quoted by Mediafax, that there are ongoing negotiations with private banks on contracting the mentioned credit and added that a restructuring process also implies costs.

During the same Parliamentary hearing, Saftoiu also said that he tries to chose a partnership that would make possible for TVR Info to continue its mission. As he explained, there is the option to close, this autumn, a partnership that would profit TVR and will allow to continue TVR Info’s mission, with more details on this matter to be made public within next 10 days or less. According to Saftoiu, the partnership will be based on an investment and a common financing between TVR and the chosen partner for TVR Info.

When it comes of TVR3, Saftoiu explained there are plans to position this channel in a niche that wasn’t touched or explored by Romanian media before. Referring to TVR Cultural, he mentioned that, next year, the channel will be revived, on a much more advanced platform.

On August 10th, TVR’s management board decided to close TVR Info and TVR Cultural, with the latter’s mission to be taken over by a TVR 2 rebranded as TVR 2 Cultural and by TVR 3.