À Punt, fined €50,000 by the Labor Inspectorate for putting its workers at risk during the DANA
The chain maintains that the employees were already deployed to the affected areas when the Generalitat issued the alert and that it is their obligation to inform
ValenciaThe Labor Inspectorate has fined Punt €50,000 for the risks taken by some of its employees while covering the effects of the DANA (National Hurricane) on October 29. This was announced on Tuesday. Eldiario.es This was confirmed to ARA by sources from the Valencian public broadcaster, who also explained that the public company has extended the fine.
The fine, imposed following a complaint filed by several unions, accuses the channel of taking more risks than necessary when its employees traveled to the most affected areas. In fact, two crews had to spend the night in the network's vehicles because they were unable to return to the program production center. The Labor Inspectorate also accuses the network of ignoring the alert issued by the Valencian Government at 8:11 p.m., demanding that "any type of travel to the province of Valencia" be avoided.
The management of À Punt has expressed its disagreement with the fine and has argued that the sanction does not take into account that the Generalitat's warning also recommended that the public stay informed of the storm and possible new warnings through official sources, such as the social media profiles of the number 2 telephone number. "If the population is asked to stay informed through À Punt, [the network] is being expressly urged to keep the population informed," the entity argues, adding that to do so they needed to go to the scenes. Finally, they emphasize that at the time the alert was broadcast, the channel's teams were already "deployed to the affected areas" and that it cannot be understood that "given the magnitude of the catastrophe" the network stopped providing information.
In addition to the debate over whether or not to travel to the most dangerous spots, another source of contention between some employees and À Punt management during coverage of the DANA incident was the availability of protective equipment, such as rain boots and all-terrain vehicles, given that they are taller and more powerful. The network denied that the workers didn't have adequate equipment and argued that the all-terrain vehicles wouldn't have been safer because they could have been swept away by the water anyway. However, after the incident, the channel has drafted a safety protocol for these cases because until now it didn't have one.
