Alfredo Urdaci will be able to return to TVE almost 20 years after his departure by winning the legal battle he had with the entity to be able to rejoin after ten years of leave. The journalist sued the corporation in 2021, which denied his reinstatement to his job.
After years of litigation, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has ruled in favor of the communicator, 63, and declares “the actor’s right to be reinstated as an Informant with the salary that is applicable at that time and without prejudice to the amount that may be set in execution of the Judgment if applicable for the corresponding period on January 17, 2015 until effective reinstatement as compensation,” as reported yesterday by El Debate.
The events date back to 2004, when Urdaci, after being news director for four years, was dismissed from his position due to multiple accusations of manipulating information and subservience to the ruling party, the PP. Undoubtedly, the most negative moment for the presenter was the sentence imposed by the National Court for the informative treatment given to the general strike of June 20, 2003. Said sentence forced RTVE to issue a ruling in favor of the lawsuit filed by the CCOO union for one day. against the public entity, causing a strong controversy over the partisan use that the Aznar government made of the public communication channels.
After being removed, the journalist requested a ten-year leave of absence that ended in 2014. When the permit expired, Urdaci asked to be reinstated but TVE denied his request. Since then, the journalist has expressed his desire to return to his job on numerous occasions, but RTVE has argued that his position – won by opposition in 1985 – is occupied and that there are no vacancies in the same category.
The presenter responded in 2021 to the entity’s continuous refusals with a lawsuit requesting his reinstatement and compensation of 300,000 euros. This figure has been justified by Urdaci for the economic damage due to lost profits for the salaries that he had stopped receiving all those years, from 2015 to 2021.
Finally, his lawyer, Jon Zabala Otegui, a well-known labor activist on RTVE for having won more court cases of this type, has managed to get the Social Court number 13 of Madrid to issue a ruling in his favor. In 2015, the same lawyer got the Justice to order the reinstatement of workers from Comando actualidad and La mañana de La 1. Likewise, the chain had to pay the workers all the money they had stopped earning during the two years that they were left without their job, which translated into 550,000 euros.