Emma O'Kelly: RTÉ rank and file happy to see double standards finally made public

RTÉ reporters Emma O’Kelly and Paul Reynolds with members of the NUJ protesting at RTÉ Television Studios over the current scandal. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

As the crisis at RTÉ deepened this week, I remembered a meeting of RTÉ TV researchers that I went to last April. These are some of the bright and creative women and men who make presenters like Ryan Tubridy look good.

They line up guests for shows like the Late Late Show, read the books the celebrities have written, and prepare briefs and questions for the presenter to ask. But earlier this year they were upset and angry.

Across the Late Late Show and other TV programmes in RTÉ’s entertainment division, the practice of working from home for one day every week had suddenly been banned. The decision was absolute and unilateral. 

When workers asked ‘why’, their boss told them in an email: “I believe it is important that leaders own decisions and so I’m not going to get into the ins and outs of that.” 

The door was slammed shut without the courtesy of even an explanation.

At the meeting, I listened as these low-paid workers outlined their personal circumstances and how working at home one day a week had helped make their lives manageable. I heard speaker after speaker rail against injustices and a sense of powerlessness. Most of these speakers were women.

On top of that, in an area where opportunities for promotion are thin on the ground, RTÉ had just brought someone from outside the organisation in to fill a coveted assistant producer post. There had been no advertisement or interviews, no chance for RTÉ’s hardworking researchers to apply.

No wonder they were furious.

As an elected NUJ rep I’ve been to many meetings like this. I am contacted on almost a weekly basis by individuals or groups of workers in RTÉ who have a grievance and feel they have nowhere within the organisation to turn.

'Kept show on the road'

“When people go on about what a great job [Ryan Tubridy] did during covid, a lot of that was us,” one Late Late Show researcher told me this week.

"We kept that show on the air when every other chat show in the world went into the hosts’ homes. We stayed in studio and we fulfilled our duty to the public.”

Like other RTÉ workers, those low-paid staff are sickened by the revelations of the past nine days. They are talking of a ‘them and us’ culture at the broadcaster. “It feels like a kick in the guts,” another told me this week.

Staff in RTÉ have known for a long time that there have been double standards, that there has been one rule for us and another for a small elite within the organisation. But after this week, we can see how deep this runs.

But there is another divide at RTÉ — a cultural one.

The vast majority of staff take the public service remit of our work in RTÉ very seriously.

But the organisation itself appears to have lost sight of that entirely.

On Thursday, RTÉ employees were sickened as the f uller picture surrounding the secret payments to Ryan Tubridy was laid bare. We were disgusted to hear about lavish trips to the Rugby World Cup in Japan, golf and meals at the K-Club, and cars from commercial sponsors for presenters on third-party contracts and for one staff member.

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We always knew that RTÉ’s dual funding model — combining commercial revenue with TV licence funding — contained a conflict, but now it seems that commercial interests have won out at the expense of staff and viewing public alike.

Former group commercial director of RTÉ Willie O’Reilly told Morning Ireland yesterday that RTÉ “has become increasingly dependent on commercial revenue”.

“If the money doesn’t come in, the programmes don’t get made,” he said.

RTÉ published a new public service statement in March that states that it is “independent of political, commercial and other interests”. But when programme presenters are driving around in cars provided by commercial sponsors and RTÉ is using taxpayers’ money to wine and dine advertising executives, can the broadcaster really say that?

Staff feel like a dam has burst and we are glad. 

Despite the best efforts of some at RTÉ, the double standards at the broadcaster are now emerging into public view.

On behalf of the public and staff, we are calling for the double standards to end.

We want a cap on all earnings at RTÉ. In 2019, we decided that no one at the broadcaster, be they presenter or executive, should earn more than a top civil servant. This remains our position.

We see no place for the kind of third-party contracts, involving powerful private agents, under which Ryan Tubridy and other top presenters are employed.

We believe that RTÉ should be a model of best practice in regard to employment, corporate governance, industrial relations, and public procurement.

We are appealing to Government once and for all to grasp the nettle and create a sustainable equitable funding system for the national broadcaster.

The TV licence fee has long been unfit for purpose. We believe that there should be a tax on the big tech giants such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook who rake in massive profits and help spread fake news and disinformation.

Amid all this noise, we believe it is all the more vital for Irish democracy that the Irish public is provided with the highest standard of ethical public service broadcasting.

Workers in RTÉ also want an end to what they feel is the disdain that they are currently often treated with. The boss who dismissed the TV researchers’ request for an explanation as to why they could not work from home one day per week — remember, their job for the day might be reading a book and writing up a brief — ended his email breezily.

“It may provide scant comfort,” he wrote, “but nevertheless it bears saying — your hard work is understood, recognised, and valued. Have a terrific weekend.”

Words are cheap, actions speak volumes. For staff at RTÉ, that applies not just to those in charge of RTÉ but also to the Government and all the politicians who spoke out on this crisis this week.