Statement of Georgian Public Broadcaster on employee schedule changes
Statement of Georgian Public Broadcaster on employee schedule changes

Due to implementing effective new broadcast season, Georgian Public Broadcaster planned staff registration, work schedule and system arrangement which had been completely collapsed for years.

Public Broadcaster is a specific organization where positions are normalized or non-normalized. Some employees work hourly or on different shifts.

It is notable that the records system was demolished in Public Broadcaster and records had not been done. Consequently, this was reflected in the 2015-2016 report of the State Audit Office of Georgia. Recommendations of the report included the importance of doing record of staff attendance, introduction of so-called turnstile
system.

In May 2018 access-control system installation in the building was completed. After this, the employees of Public Broadcaster were warned for several times.

When the system activated, it became obvious that in some structural units, work-load were not properly distributed or existing work-load was incorrectly reflected on work regime.

It has been revealed that part of the staff attendance is extremely low. Others come to work for a short period of time. We would like to emphasize that a certain number of employees did not actually arrive at office and we own the data to prove this. While another part of employees has accumulated overtime working hours.

It has been revealed that the work graphs/shifts established during the past years ineffective and unfairly distributed the work-load of the employees. As a result, the excessive number of employee groups has accumulated which do not correspond to the needs of programs and significantly increases the human resources.

The new season (2018/2019) was planned with defining the relevant workforce – all existing program will be still on the air and several large-scale projects are planned. Accordingly, the human resources needed to produce these programs have  been defined; working groups of the particular projects have been staffed; workload of employees and shifts has been defined.

In recent days, fake information has spread about the number of employees to whom the terms of the contracts seem to be changed. In fact, only 70 people have been warned timely, in accordance with the law, about changing their terms of the contract.

We declare with full responsibility that no one has been fired from the organization except of a few people who did not actually come to the work. we have offered changed contract terms to the rest.

The offer prepared for employees includes:

– remuneration in accordance with the actual work performed;
– the payment calculation will be based on days and not hours;
– the work will be performed in accordance with the task, and the task will be formed based on production processes, the volume and complexity of the programs, as well as the volume of current projects and work-load.

– Apart from the working regime and the relevant payment system, other terms of the contract remain unchanged.

We call on every interested person to get detailed information about the process. Since the broadcaster is a public organization, the ongoing processes are absolutely open and transparent. The Board of Trustees is involved in the processes and the Broadcast Management is ready for any explanation.