Friday night reported de Volkskrant that behind the scenes The world goeson a culture of fear prevailed. Dozens of employees fell ill. For nine years,NPO director Frans Klein was closely involved on behalf of broadcaster Vara inthe rise of DWDD , but he did not intervene after reports. Nor are hissuccessors. Klein: “I never thought: there is an abuse here.”
“The public broadcaster, including BNNVara, must guarantee a safe workplace.For everyone,” said Secretary of State Uslu on Saturday afternoon in responseto the article. “It is terrible that people had to work in these conditions.It touches me that employees have felt so unsafe and have been treated verybadly. This is not how a workplace should be. Not even when people are underhigh pressure.”
According to the minister, success is never an excuse for unacceptablebehaviour. “I have asked the chairman of the NPO to thoroughly investigatewhat happened here. I want an action plan with concrete steps to prevent thisin the future and to change this behavior.”
No excuses
Even in work situations where the pressure is high, the environment should notlook away, but people should address each other, reports Mariëtte Hamer. ThePvdA celebrity is currently the government commissioner for sexuallytransgressive behavior and sexual violence.
Hamer recognizes in it Volkskrant article many of the mechanisms that alsoapply to sexually transgressive behavior, she says. And she sees an importantrole for the employer, in this case the public broadcaster, in tacklingabuses; which is financed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
“I recognize that for people on temporary contracts, who love their job andwho work in a competitive culture, that is very difficult. That is why it isespecially important that the employer provides protection in this type ofworking environment,” says the government commissioner about publicbroadcasting. “Once again it shows how important it is that there is a goodreporting structure, and that something actually happens with reports.”
Good employership
There are also voices from various political parties that it is important thatpublic service broadcasters show good employment practices in this area. CDAMember of Parliament and former presenter Lucille Werner finds it’disconcerting’ that things could go so wrong with this show.
“Employees should always feel protected by colleagues and employer. It’sdistressing that so many people in the workplace of DWDD have not felt thisand have been harmed. Bad. Because things can be done differently, I knowbecause I myself have worked in the sector for 25 years.”
The PVV is going hard towards the responsible top man, Frans Klein. “Thesocialist Vara talks about how idealistic they are. In the meantime, they gaveVan Nieuwkerk an insane mega salary and director Frans Klein allowed him toterrorize young editors for fifteen years,” says Member of Parliament MartinBosma (PVV). According to Bosma, Klein must ‘absolutely’ resign after therevelations about it DWDD.
NPO and broadcasters will soon come up with an action plan for a safeworking environment
The NPO will draw up an action plan ‘in the short term’ together with allbroadcasters ‘to ensure that there is a safe working environment for allemployees of the public broadcaster at all times,’ said NPO chairmanFrederieke Leeflang on Saturday.
She made this known after a discussion about this with Secretary of StateGunay Uslu (Media).
“At the public broadcasters, we are all extremely shocked by the large numberof employees who have had negative and fearful experiences while working withthe program DWDD ,” says Lifelong. “This should never have happened.Saturday morning I talked about this with Secretary of State Gunay Uslu and weboth came to the conclusion that we need to find out quickly and thoroughlywhat exactly happened here and what we can do as a public broadcaster toprevent such things in the future.”
The goal is to come up with ‘concrete actions’. “First of all, we do this forall employees of the public broadcaster; everyone who works in front of andbehind the scenes on our programs. We also want to understand what exactlyhappened at DWDD so that we can learn from this for the future.”