RTÉ to pay off 'bogus' self-employed workers

Dee Forbes, director-general, RTÉ. The State broadcaster has sent offer letters to workers affected. Picture Andres Poveda Photography

RTÉ has proposed a series of reimbursement payments for employees deemed to have been bogus self-employed — but only for those covered by a review dating from 2018.

The State broadcaster last week sent offer letters to workers deemed under the review — performed by consultants Eversheds Sutherland — to have been incorrectly categorised as contract workers, offering payments of between €2,500 and €17,500 in “recognition of past continuous service”.

It’s understood that the employees in question have one month to decide whether or not to take the payments, or to escalate their case to the Workplace Relations Commission.

RTÉ has been bedevilled by the issue of bogus self-employment over the past five years.

The practice sees workers who are performing the functions of a regular employee classified as self-employed or freelance for PRSI purposes.

As such, they do not have the same statutory social insurance contributions, holiday and maternity/paternity benefits, and pension contributions that PAYE workers receive.

List of 433 freelancers

The 2018 Eversheds review had considered a list of 433 freelancers working with RTÉ, and concluded that 157 of them had “attributes akin to employment”.

From that process, 82 workers were offered full contracts of employment with RTÉ, with 79 of them accepting the offer.

It is those 79 workers who were last week offered the lump sum payments in recognition of their having worked for some time for the broadcaster while being incorrectly treated as freelance employment.

Given the number of workers in receipt of the offer, the cost of the initiative to RTÉ can be priced at something between just under €200,000 and €1.382m.

The offer does not take into account the more than 500 workers’ contracts at RTÉ which are currently under review by the SCOPE section of the Department of Social Protection — which bears responsibility for the classification of workers who are in dispute as to their own categorisation.

Previously, some employees who were not part of the Eversheds review but who had nonetheless received a favourable decision as part of the SCOPE process, saw those decisions appealed by RTÉ to the Social Welfare Appeals Office.

The full SCOPE review is not expected to conclude until next year.

Top-up payments

The new offer for those covered by the Eversheds process meanwhile contains ‘top up’ payments for those who took maternity leave — €5,000 per period — during the review period, with paternity leave to be reimbursed at a level of €750 per tranche taken.

As part of the deal, RTÉ has proposed a commencement date for each employee which could be used in terms of future redundancy calculations or mortgage applications, although the offer itself may not cover all of the unclaimed PRSI to which those who were long-term bogus self employed may feel entitled.

One source within the broadcaster suggested that take-up for the offer may be high, particularly for those who have been working there for shorter periods:

There are just no guarantees at the WRC, and even with the SCOPE review, there is nothing automatic in legislation to say your benefits will be applied retrospectively.

A spokesperson for RTÉ said it had jointly engaged with the Trade Union Group “in a facilitated process aimed at proposing a fair solution to the issue of retrospection for those current employees who were offered and accepted contracts of employment as part of the Eversheds process”.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection declined to comment as to the progress of the review, and as to how many employees have now been deemed to have been bogus self-employed.

“The Department does not comment on on-going investigations or decision outcomes,” they said.