Zagreb, September 18, 2006
TUCJ Chapel_________________________
T o All M e m b e r s
Dear Colleagues,
Come-back from holidays this year shocked a lot of our colleagues in a number of
Croatian media. Their employers used summer calm and absence of staff to install new rules
and organizational schemes with joint effect to diminish existing rights of workers and media
collaborators.
Management of the daily paper Vecernji list (owned by Styria) brought new restrictive
Rules at Work on August 7, 2006. (“to be implemented on August 15, 2006”) absolutely
neglecting existing Collective Agreement of the Vecernji list and its provisions. Also, on
September 15, 2006, this management brought Ethical Code of Vecernji list without having
enabled journalists to discuss it prior to implementation. This code significantly limits
professional freedom of Vecernji's journalists, brings additional insecurity to their work and
breeches their core human and civil rights. For instance, journalists of Vecernji list “must not
sign public petitions or participate in support rallies...” (All the journalists in Croatia are
covered by the Code of Etics of the Croatian Journalists’ Association, anyway).
Management of the daily paper Jutarnji list (owned by WAZ) follows the practice of
Vecernji list whose owner, Austrian media company Styria broke it into 14 companies.
Workers were formally transferred from Vecernji list to these new companies, but they have
not moved physically an inch. Management's goal, among others, is to exclude as many
workers as possible from the range of protection of Collective Agreement of the Vecernji list.
WAZ begins its action at Jutarnji list by removing photographers and photo-services in a
separate company, where they will be covered by Collective Agreement for professional
journalists and other employees at the Jutarnji list only for one year period guaranteed by
Labor Law for such situations.
Management of the daily paper Novi list has recoursed to new, indirect, method of
employing journalists via agency for employment. Agency signs employment contract with a
journalist and then rents him/her to the Novi list. Novi list pays amount covering journalist's
monthly salary and benefits plus agency's commission to the agency's bank account, and the
agency pays salary to the journalist. In such a manner, Novi list uses full services of
journalists, but avoids any responsibility towards them because journalists are not employees
of the newspaper, but agency's employees!
The most disappointing in all these situations is the fact that journalists sign these
contracts – either to be shifted to another company or to be rented via the employment agency
– under the pressure of intimidation or threats to be laid-off or prevented from collaborating in
the medium. Also, they are lured to sign by being offered seemingly better contracts in terms
of financial conditions. But, in the long-range all these new contracts are much worse than the
old ones, and incomparably worse than protection achieved by collective agreement.
Disastrous consequences of loosing collective agreements are still to follow. (Media
employers for example claim that there are too many women in the media and that they are
too old. Their opinion about male colleagues is not any better).
In order not to lose collective agreements entirely, journalists should wake up and
defend their rights achieved thanks to great efforts of shop-stewards and many members of
the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists. Fear which flooded Croatian media staff has been
created by the employers. Let's break this fear by reminding ourselves that labor rights are
core human rights, that trade unions have not been invented in socialist system but in
capitalism, that the right to collective bargaining is guaranteed by the conventions of the
International Labor Organization and that collective agreements give the best protection to
workers. Let's not forget that journalists are also merely workers who - to their luck - process
and disseminate special and precious product – information. This makes the fact that we
permit employers to treat us like they do - even more pathetic.
Instead of recoursing to inefficient grumbling in the dark corners of corridors let's
rouse ourselves, let’s join our forces and defend our rights!
Respectfully,
Marinka Boljkovac
TUCJ Secretary