The complaint against eight executives of the Radio and Television Corporation of Galicia (CRTVG), including its general director, Alfonso Sánchez Izquierdo, who have been charged by the court for two crimes of moral harassment and against the rights of a worker who denounced humiliations and abuses for five years, reveals a strategy of continued professional and personal discredit that has resulted in serious moral and psychological damage for the victim.
Público has had access to the reports of a judicial expert, a company doctor, a psychiatrist from the Servizo Galego de Saúde and another who practices private medicine, who consider that the anxiety and depression symptoms caused in her by the humiliating treatment and the allegedly arbitrary decisions of the management would be linked to that strategy that his lawyers consider an “institutionalized situation of harassment”.
The judicial expert who examined her concludes in his report that the victim “is subjected to a serious process of workplace harassment by her superiors, basing their strategies (…) on the hindrance of [su] progress and discredit work”. “As a result of the situation of harassment, the worker is on medical leave and is being treated by mental health specialists, exceeding situations of harassment and its consequences, therefore, mere labor relations, affecting significantly to their family and social environment, as diagnosed by medical reports” he adds.
sexist decision
The journalist, who joined the CRTVG in 1987 and who was assigned to the commercial department, denounced in court that in February 2018 she had been transferred to the newsroom, with schedule changes, without prior notice and with the excuse of a supposed “reorganization” of both departments that only affected her. In addition, she understood that it was a sexist decision since the directors claimed that she “sought a certain profile because she was a female voice.” However, the judge ruled against her and since then, according to her complaint, she began to systematically suffer degrading and discriminatory treatment that turned her work into a “true ordeal.”
The managers claimed that “they were looking for a certain profile because it was a female voice”
Her bosses stopped talking to her, placed her in a position far from her friendliest environment, and began to create an aggressive and distrustful climate toward her. They repeatedly denied her requests for personal leave and vacation dates and denied her demands to return to her old schedule so she could reconcile her work with caring for her 94-year-old father, even denying her the hours she needed to accompany him when he entered a nursing home.
Concentration of CRTVG workers on April 25 in front of the Senate. — Fernando Sanchez / Europa Press
They also excluded her from practically all the work shifts on holidays, which deprived her of payroll supplements and the accumulation of payroll that the rest of the staff enjoyed. If the average was six holidays per year per worker, she only had one: she was the only editor of the station called to work on January 1, 2019.
The only woman forced to work on 8M
In March of that year, the company decided that she was the only woman included in the minimum services decreed by the 8M feminist strike. On the contrary, the following month, due to the local and European elections, she was the only one excluded from the coverage of election day, to which the rest of all her colleagues were summoned: editors, temporary staff and trainees , interns and broadcasters.
The harassment also included an attitude of obvious demerit of the public image of the professional, who has been with the company for 36 years except for the eight in which she requested leave of absence to direct the delegation of Radio Nacional de España in Galicia. In 2019, she unanimously received a prestigious local journalism award from the jury, but Radio Galega did not mention the news in any of its spaces. Only two years earlier, a colleague of his who had obtained a runner-up prize for the same award received extensive coverage in newsletters and news reports and even an interview on the network’s prime-time show.
“The worker is subjected to a serious process of workplace harassment by her superiors, basing their strategies (…) on the hindrance of [su] progress and discredit work”
In July 2019, the worker suffered an anxiety disorder that led to a long medical leave, during which she found out from her colleagues that her hours had been changed again. The psychiatrist she turned to then referred in her diagnostic report that her condition was derived from an “anxiety disorder compatible with symptoms reactive to a work problem.”
The victim urged the mediation of the anti-harassment commission of the CRTVG, made up of workers and directors of the company and which, with the union opposition, denied the existence of any infraction, without listening to it or even examining the supporting documentation that it sent. Nor was access to the file provided, and the management prevented the workers’ delegates from reflecting their discrepancies with the minutes of the meetings and their particular vote against the final decision to archive the case.
When she returned from her leave in 2020, the network’s head of news, today charged for her participation in the events, relocated the journalist to a table right in front of her office. She, who considered him one of those responsible for her situation and her anxiety crisis, requested that they assign her another place in the newsroom, to which the company repeatedly refused.
Alfonso Rueda, in an interview on Galician Television. — CRTVG
The Sergas psychiatrist wrote a report in which she once again warned that the journalist’s health disorders were due “to stressors in the workplace”, and the CRTVG doctor herself sent another to several managers in which she expressly recommended “the change of the worker to another physical location in her workplace”. The company ignored her warning and kept her face to face with whom she considered one of the causes of her condition on a daily basis.
The worker then went to the general manager, who ignored the matter, alleging that he lacked the authority to resolve the problem. He referred his letter to the director of human resources, his subordinate, who had already refrained from intervening when he had previously received it. So, until today.
Humiliation and no one
The complaint recounts many other humiliations and neglect during the last five years, such as the fact that the worker is forced to go to work at 7:30 a.m. without being assigned tasks until mid-morning or later; that the pieces commissioned from him are often not issued; that she is not summoned to meetings or invited to participate in discussions about daily news, or to participate in the analysis of the news of the day, and that she constantly suffers verbal insults and derogatory gestures from her superiors.
The judge orders the worker to testify by videoconference accompanied by a professional from the Victim Assistance Office
The judge of the Court of Instruction Number 1 of Santiago, Ana López Suevos, opened previous criminal proceedings last May and informed the eight senior officials accused that she is investigating them for the crimes of moral harassment and violation of the worker’s labor rights . They are Alfonso Sánchez Izquierdo, general director; Xosé Pereira Fariña, business director; Alejandro López Carballeira, deputy director of news; Tania Fernández Lombao, head of programs; Paula Veloso Pereira, head of personnel management; Susana Fernández Veiguela, former director of human resources; Manuel Casás Macía, head of occupational health and safety, and Vitalina Cuña Palencia, personnel coordinator. All must testify before the judge and the prosecutor accompanied by their respective lawyers.
Secondary victimization
The complainant will do so on September 28. To avoid “secondary victimization” of her, the judge has ordered that she do so by videoconference and accompanied by a psychologist from the Victim Care Office. She has also urged the Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia to make a psychosocial team available to the court to evaluate “if the complainant presents mental damage compatible with the facts denounced.”
It is not the first time that the CRTVG has faced legal proceedings for workplace harassment and violation of labor and fundamental rights of its employees, with convictions for retaliating and violating the fundamental rights of professionals critical of the manipulation of information management of the Sánchez Izquierdo team .
CRTVG workers, in protest in a “black vendor” in a file image. — Dedende to Galega
In fact, the cases have occurred on a recurring basis since Sánchez Izquierdo was appointed 15 years ago as head of the public media by Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Next Tuesday it is scheduled that another three consecutive trials will be held in the same Social Court of the Galician capital for the complaints of many other workers, who have also resorted to the courts to defend themselves against the violations of rights of which they accuse to the address.
This has been repeatedly censored by the works council, the unions and the opposition in the Galician Parliament, which has also criticized the broadcast of sexist content and the trivialization of harassing behaviors in public television programming.
No response from the CRTVG management
Público has contacted the CRTVG to obtain a valuation of the public company and to ask if it plans to adopt measures to resolve the situation of the worker or against the accused managers, but at the close of this edition it had not received a response.
This Friday, 266 black vendors will be celebrated, the days of protest called by the Defende a Galega platform, through which workers have been demanding the end of information manipulation and reprisals against those who refuse to assume it for more than five years, as well such as the creation of an independent news council and compliance with the law approved by the PP in 2011 that establishes that the position held by Sánchez Izquierdo be elected by a two-thirds majority in the Galician Parliament.
2023-06-23 04:22:53
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