Alesp (Legislative Assembly of São Paulo) opened a procedure to terminate the contract with the foundation responsible for TV Alesp, accused by employees and former employees of delaying salaries and not paying dismissal fines.
TV Alesp has been managed since 2011 by Fundac (Foundation for the Development of Arts and Communication), a private non-profit entity. For the first time since he took over as House communications director, the producer was disqualified from an auction last month and will finish his work in the Assembly early next year.
The current contract, signed in March 2023 worth BRL 30 million, was updated to BRL 42.9 million after being extended twice. It ends on January 30, 2026.
“At the end of January 2026, the legal duration of the contract between Alesp and the foundation will expire. In other words, the contract will be executed in its entirety until its end,” specifies the communication from the Assembly in a note.
Employees consulted by the report said the contract should end while the process is still ongoing, given that the closure is not due to an internal decision, but rather because Fundac did not win the last bid.
The termination procedure was announced by the General Secretariat of Administration, responsible for Alesp contracts, in the Official Journal of December 1. The justification is that the producer has expired part of the mandatory documentation since November 2024 – in this case, the certificate of clearance of labor debts, a document which certifies the absence of debts to the labor court.
Alesp announced, also at the beginning of the month, that it would impose a fine of R$12,700 on Fundac for not presenting the documentation stipulated in the contract and invoiced since April of this year. The producer did not respond to the reporter’s attempts to contact him by email and telephone.
With reservation, former employees and collaborators still working for the foundation report salary gaps and delays. Complaints include non-payment of credits for transport and meal vouchers and delays in FGTS payments since last year.
The cases are not only reported in São Paulo, but also in Brasilia, on TV Justiça, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), also managed by Fundac. In both cities, production company employees denounced irregularities in payments to journalists’ and broadcasters’ unions.
In July, less than two months before Bolsonaro’s trial for coup plotting was broadcast, employees of TV Justiça in Brasilia approved a state of strike – signaling the category’s intention to paralyze activities if negotiations on labor rights do not move forward. However, no strike has taken place so far.
In addition to Alesp and the STF, Fundac maintains contracts with the TSE (Higher Electoral Court) and the Chamber of Deputies. In São Paulo, the producer employs 120 professionals. In Brasilia, the foundation claims to employ 500 people.
Exempted from bidding for its first contract with Alesp, Fundac has won all of the Assembly’s competitions since 2013. It was disqualified from the last auction, in November of this year, for failing to present a certificate issued by the federal government to non-profit organizations. In the dispute, the producer questioned the obligation of the document.
The winner of the competition was EPTV de São Carlos, which is part of the group responsible for TV Globo subsidiaries inside São Paulo and south of Minas Gerais. The contract, with an initial value of 26.9 million reais, is still being evaluated.
Fundac employees are concerned that the company does not have the financial means to face possible layoffs, since the EPTV cost table, if accepted, foresees 103 vacant positions, or 17 people less than the current staff of TV Alesp.
In April 2023, the Leaf published that the then president of Fundac, Ricardo Castilho, had resigned from his position due to suspicions of embezzlement of funds from the entity’s coffers estimated at 3.5 million reais through an “orange” company.
The same month, Fundac won the auction to remain in front of TV Alesp, under the contract still in force today and which will be terminated. The tender process, as revealed by Leafinvolved other companies whose partners were linked to the foundation.
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