“Teleradio-Moldova” employees staged protest against non-professionalism of company’s head

Over 150 employees of the public Company “Teleradio-Moldova”, journalists and programme producers accuse the Company’s director Ilie Telescu of lack of transparency in budget management and also lack of professionalism. Head of the Committee for monitoring the employees’ rights Nicu Scorpan told Thursday, December 14, a press conference that the employees demand increase wages. The Committee’s representatives also said that Telescu rejects the recommendations regarding wage increases, made by the Audiovisual Coordinating Council, Ministry of Economy and Commerce as a result of many petitions coming from the employees. Programme producer Nina Bolboceanu stated that in the last two years, the public television airs only low quality programmes that the institutions’ employees dislike as well. “Today we can watch on the public television only movies made in 70’, talk-shows about disabled children, old people, homosexuals, and programmes for children”, absolutely lacking debates on stringent problems of the society. Bolboceanu says that the present leadership of the Company destroyed most of editorial staffs: youth, theatre, musical and literary programmes. The editorial staff is usually composed of just three-four persons, two of them pensioners. Instead, as she states, the editorial staff on programmes for children, which is composed of eight employees, was not liquidated, because it is headed by Ilie Telescu’s wife. At the same time, it was criticized the creation “overnight” of the institution “Telefilm-Chisinau”, where Ilie Telescu is producer of all the musicals. While the programme producers from the public television work for 100-200 lei, the movies Telescu produces are paid tens of thousands of lei, “Teleradio-Moldova” employees say, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. The reorganization of the state company “Teleradio-Moldova” in public audiovisual institution in 2004 has resulted in dismissing a large number of employees that sued the company’s administration, accusing it of dismissing the journalists for political reasons. The lawsuit is lasting till present.