SSM expects solidarity-based pay cuts for SRG cadre
The trade union Schweizer Syndikat Medienschaffender SSM regrets that SRG did not also reduce the salaries of management and the Board of Directors at the same time as it adjusted the management salary system. In this way, they could have expressed their solidarity with the staff and contributed to cost reduction at SRG.
The Board of Directors of SRG had decided in November last year to integrate a previous so-called "variable" salary component into the fixed salary of the cadres from 2023, as the media office of the news agency Keystone-SDA announced on Monday upon request. Over the weekend, CH Media had reported on adjustments to the salary system.
In the past, however, the variable component had "not been a bonus dependent on the company's results and paid voluntarily," but part of "the contractually agreed and insured salary." Accordingly, it amounted to around 20 percent.
This percentage was usually achieved, but in the new system it is now fixed at 100 percent. For this reason, the average salary of management staff and the total salary sum have not changed.
Staff salaries decreased
In a statement on Monday, the SSM union welcomed "the end of the archaic system". This was because the variable component had sometimes allowed for the rewarding of goals that could not be controlled, such as savings achieved through job cuts.
However, it regrets that "in this time of crisis" management salaries have not been reduced "significantly" at the same time. In fact, staff salaries have declined overall in recent years. The union therefore expects SRG's senior management "to also reduce their salaries in solidarity," it said.
Also in other companies
The Federal Office of Communications Bakom wrote in response to a request that SRG had informed the Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications Uvek in December about the system change in executive compensation.
The integration of the variable component into the fixed salary had also been decided in other Swiss companies. However, the determination of the compensation of the SRG Executive Board members is not a matter for the federal government, but for the SRG itself.
According to SRG's annual report, Director General Gilles Marchand earned CHF 532,857 in 2020, while Chairman of the Board Jean-Michel Cina earned CHF 153,300 per year with a 50 percent job. The seven members of the Executive Board received an average of 389,702 francs. (SDA)
