Colleagues of ex-RTÉ newsreader 'shocked' she was denied pension for nearly 20 years

Angie Mezzetti worked at RTÉ between 1984 and 2001, first as a television continuity announcer and later as a newsreader.

Colleagues of former RTÉ newsreader Angie Mezzetti have expressed their “shock” upon hearing she had been denied a pension at the broadcaster for nearly 20 years.

Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Dublin Broadcasting branch said they wished to express solidarity with Ms Mezzetti. It comes after the Irish Examiner reported she had been informed she had been a full employee of RTÉ, despite being graded as a casual worker during her time there.

Ms Mezzetti had worked at RTÉ between 1984 and 2001, first as a television continuity announcer and later as a newsreader.

In a statement, the NUJ branch said its members had been “shocked to read details in the Irish Examiner of how our former colleague Angie Mezzetti was treated by RTÉ”.

It said Ms Mezzetti’s case was unlikely to be an isolated one, and that she was “among possibly hundreds of workers at the station who were treated as contractors when they should have been employees and were denied vital securities such as pensions as a result”.

“For some, the issue is ongoing,” the branch said, adding Ms Mezzetti’s “terrible ordeal” amounts to a “stark example of the ‘them and us’ culture that prevailed for so long at the broadcaster”.

The Dublin branch added that culture “has particularly damaged women — both emotionally and in terms of their careers”.

“We send our full solidarity to Angie,” the branch said.

RTÉ has been asked to comment on the Dublin Broadcasting Branch statement.

RTÉ previously had declined to comment on Ms Mezzetti’s case, with a spokesperson saying it “cannot comment on individual cases”.

In 2000, she took a case to the then Labour Relations Commission, claiming she had effectively been unfairly dismissed when RTÉ stopped giving her work in 2000. That case was eventually settled privately.

However, having recently requested an insurability of employment review from the Department of Social Protection’s employment status unit, Ms Mezzetti was told an investigation was unnecessary as she had been correctly classified as a PAYE worker for the duration of her time with RTÉ.

It transpired Ms Mezzetti, who now works as a podcast producer and communications trainer, had been paid as a Class A PRSI worker — that is, as a direct employee — for her entire career with the State broadcaster.

Responding to her request, a department investigator told her the documents they had received from RTÉ regarding Ms Mezzetti’s employment “are consistent with documents provided in relation to employees, rather than self-employed contractors”.

Despite this, when a claim was taken on behalf of Ms Mezzetti by the NUJ to the then Rights Commission in September 2000, in which she said she had been unilaterally removed from RTÉ’s newscaster roster, RTÉ claimed it could not have unfairly dismissed Ms Mezzetti as she had only ever been a casual employee.

As part of that claim, Ms Mezzetti said by removing her from the working rosters RTÉ had “broken a de facto contract of employment without agreement or notice”.

As a casual employee, Ms Mezzetti was denied access to RTÉ’s pension schemes, despite having worked there for nearly 18 years. She was also denied natural increments to her salary, and was always paid a flat rate even when working as a national newscaster.

Ms Mezzetti said of her case she had “always felt aggrieved that I wasn’t recognised as an employee and wasn’t allowed access to the pension scheme”.