Imprint and publishers' association reach agreement on industry agreement

After more than 30 negotiating sessions, Swiss journalists, represented by impressum and syndicom, together with the Swiss Media Publishers Association (VSM), have succeeded in formulating a draft industry agreement. In March, the impressum delegates approved this agreement in principle. However, two key points initially remained controversial: the remuneration of freelance journalists and the conditions for the industry agreement to come into force.

Remuneration must reflect effort and multiple use

In particular, the impressum delegates« meeting maintained that freelancers» fees must correspond to the time spent and the scope of use. "Freelancers' fees today are often disproportionate to the actual amount of work involved," explains Fabienne Sennhauser, Co-President of impressum. In addition, freelancers are being asked for ever more extensive rights of use without the fees being increased accordingly.

Whereas freelance journalists used to be able to sell an elaborately researched background story to several newspapers such as the Aargauer Zeitung, St. Galler Tagblatt or Südostschweiz, today all of these newspapers share a cover - but the fees for freelancers remain the same. Tamedia and Ringier are also increasingly swapping stories between their titles without increasing the fees for freelancers for texts that are used several times. Texts are now even exchanged across publishing house boundaries: the Tages-Anzeiger obtains texts from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and a text sold to the NZZ can end up translated in Le Temps.

VSM leaflet as a positive signal

Instead of compensating freelancers for such multiple uses, they are pressured into contractually assigning all usage rights to the publishers without any compensation. In fact, various titles have even adjusted their royalties downwards in recent years. Now that the VSM itself is campaigning for copyright in connection with ancillary copyright and AI regulation and for Google, Facebook and AI providers to pay something for the use of journalistic works, impressum believes it is only right that freelancers should finally be adequately compensated for the use of their works.

Accordingly, impressum is pleased to note that the VSM has now published an information sheet for freelancers to guide its members. In it, the VSM states the following principle: «The fee for freelancers is determined by the agreement concluded with the media company. The agreed fee should be based on the reasonable effort required to produce the media product, its value for the media company and the copyrights transferred.»

Impressum Co-President Fabienne Sennhauser speaks of a positive signal for journalism: «We are delighted with this concession from the publishers» association."

Path clear for industry agreement

The VSM still maintains that the industry agreement will come into force when three quarters of the media professionals working for VSM members with qualifying activities sign up to it. Meanwhile, the impressum delegation wanted to ensure that at least two-thirds of VSM members signed up to the agreement - i.e. not only the four large publishers, but also the majority of small publishers, who were taken into consideration when setting the minimum wages in the current industry agreement.

However, the VSM is now publicly confirming that the association wants to ensure that the agreement is adopted by as many members as possible. Under these conditions, impressum sees the way clear to conclude the industry agreement with syndicom and the publishers« association. »Taking into account the latest concessions made by the VSM, we believe that the industry agreement is a good compromise and a first and important step towards a binding and long-term social partnership," explains Fabienne Sennhauser.

The industry agreement creates regulated minimum working conditions for media professionals in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino for the first time in over 20 years. Subject to approval by the syndicom industry conference on April 28 and the members of the VSM on May 7, the industry agreement will be valid for three years after it is signed. Impressum will support the implementation of the agreement and continue to vigorously represent the interests of media professionals. The long-term goal remains a genuine collective labor agreement (CLA).

More information: https://www.impressum.ch