Strict Covid rules apply in the ORF center on Vienna’s Küniglberg. While the legislature prescribes a 3G rule for employees, the ORF 2Gplus includes the obligation to wear a mask and take temperatures. This means that anyone who goes about their work at the media giant must also present a daily PCR test in addition to their vaccination card or convalescent status.
According to an internal paper sent to in-house employees, around 50 employees are now threatened with salary cuts from February 15 because they have not been vaccinated and cannot carry out their original job, reports the Kurier. Affected are make-up artists, technicians or cameramen. Only those employees who can present an “exception COVID-19 vaccination” within the meaning of Section 3 of the Mandatory Vaccination Act are not affected, the letter also says.
“As a moderator, I have no interest in being made up by someone who is not vaccinated. That’s a problem then. We have strict rules and it’s problematic when someone says I won’t get vaccinated,” says a well-known show moderator who asked not to be named.
Negotiations on the matter between management and the works council have been going on since November of last year, and the deadline has already been extended three times. Now the patience of the new general director Roland Weißmann should be over. Due to the high number of infections caused by the omicron mutant, Weißmann wants to tighten the safety precautions in the house again: “In view of the fact that, on the basis of the current legal situation, infected and positively tested people (and regardless of whether no, slight or severe symptoms of illness occur) also have to reckon with an official separation, absences can almost inevitably lead to a tense personnel situation.
Works council against agreement
“I will certainly not agree anything with the management in this case, because I am very skeptical as to whether it is legal and tenable. After all, the 3G rule applies to the workplace throughout Austria by ordinance,” says the chairman of the ORF’s central works council. One is in talks with the management and is currently in the process of how many employees in the company would be affected by this planned measure.
Source: Nachrichten
