Berlin-based RBB is once again saving, but this time in the right places. Especially with the exorbitant retirement benefits for former employees.
The pension is immoral: it is now a fantastic amount of money for productions and freelancers. Photo: Schöning/imago
“The scandal was yesterday, the nonsense is today,” says a roommate about the latest court ruling on the RBB story. Well, let's take a positive look at the whole RBB scandal. The planned digital media house on the dimensions of Café Megalomania will not be built. That saves millions.
The director, who sold green interior walls at high prices and travelled at the expense of the station, is no longer there. So he also saves money. The plants in the director's plant are still there, but they convert bad CO2 into good oxygen.
The latest ruling by the State Labour Court promotes even more austerity measures. In its second instance, it decided that former RBB legal adviser Susanne Lange will be able to receive her company pension at a later date. However, since her immediate dismissal as legal director was legal, she is not entitled to the generous pension that RBB actually promised her. This would have occurred between the end of her employment at RBB and the start of her statutory pension.
At first, the labour court was told that this pension was completely immoral. The taxpayers' money was wasted without anything in return. On average, the sums corresponded to between half and two thirds of the wages paid for work performed each month.
8,000 euros for “resting”
“Not to work, but to rest,” says the roommate. A former RBB programme manager who left in 2016 received more than 8,000 euros for “rest” after a monthly salary of 15,600 euros, as RBB investigated on its own.
Lange recently received an annual salary of almost 199,000 euros. As he is in his early 50s, the broadcaster has many years of retirement benefits saved up and is guaranteed more than 1 million euros. A fantastic amount of money that is now available for programming and production.
So it's a nice and exemplary concept for the retirement benefits of all the members of the RBB top management who have been kicked out of the field. Hopefully the former administrative director, the former director of management and the former production director, who complain about a lot of money, will also see the positive side. That it doesn't go into your pocket, but into the media library where you'll find a lot of good material. There's definitely a new season of “Waiting for the Bus” there.
We have been waiting a long time for the trial of former director Patricia Schlesinger. And I keep my fingers crossed that the pensions she is demanding, which exceed 18,000 euros per month, will not be fulfilled.
If the broadcaster also receives the 260,000 euros in compensation it has demanded from Schlesinger, this alone would guarantee the Berlinale documentary prize money for the coming years. This means that the RBB does not have to withdraw “for financial reasons”.