Negotiations for SRG-GAV 2013 ended without agreement
Negotiations for a new SRG collective bargaining agreement (CBA) for 2013—intended to replace the 2009 CBA, which expires at the end of the year—have concluded without an agreement between the negotiating parties, the Swiss Media Professionals Union (SSM) and the SRG. Impressum participated in the negotiations as an observer.
SRG wanted to deploy staff more flexibly and at the same time reduce compensation for night work, weekend work and irregular work. This is what Impressum wrote in a press release on Tuesday. SRG had also planned to reduce health protection. In addition, SRG wanted to reduce the contributions to the creativity fund, which is available to employees for further training, to an "unacceptable extent".
However, a CLA-less situation from 2013 is not the necessary consequence, writes Impressum. Even during the negotiations for the current CLA 2009, the previous CLA 2004 had to be extended because the negotiations were declared to have failed at a certain point. A new attempt then led to the CLA 2009.
Communiqué issued by the Swiss Syndicate of Media Professionals SSM on May 16:
"On Tuesday, May 15, negotiations on a new collective labor agreement for 2013 between SRG and the Swiss Syndicate of Media Professionals (SSM) broke down in Bern. Now that the SRG has categorically rejected further negotiations, for the first time in the history of the SRG there is a threat of a contractless situation from 2013. The consequences for the fulfillment of the public service mandate are unforeseeable.
Under the pretext of simplifying the CLA, the SRG presented its social partner with a catalog of cuts never before submitted to the SSM in the decades-long history of CLA negotiations.
In the CLA negotiations, SRG demanded that bonuses for overtime or overtime work be abolished or reduced. In particular, employees who work irregularly on
Those who work weekends and at night would have to reckon with massive financial losses. It is an act of unfairness that the SRG wants to throw out of the CLA the very concessions it made to employees in 2009 so that they would agree to the introduction of annual working hours.
The annual working time saves SRG millions every year. This is one of the reasons why SRG was back in the black in 2011. If SRG had had its way, employees would not only have had less in their wallets, but would also have had to work even harder and more stressfully. SRG also wants to weaken health protection to a considerable extent by proposing regulations and agreements that clearly violate the mandatory labor law and its ordinances. Together with numerous other deteriorations - such as the reduction of remuneration for copyrights by 2/3 of the previous amount - at the end of the negotiations SRG had an offer on the table that is unacceptable from a trade union perspective.
SRG has rejected practically all of the SSM's demands. The SSM is calling for further negotiations to be opened A CLA is not least an expression of a company's respect and appreciation for its employees. It is an important signal of stability and job security, especially in times of upheaval. With its behavior, the public company SRG is endangering this stability. In addition, without the regulatory effect of a collective labor agreement, the entire Swiss electronic media sector will very quickly find itself confronted with much worse production and working conditions in European countries. This represents a major risk for the working and wage conditions of Swiss employees.
The SSM is therefore calling on the SRG to revise its CLA demands and come back to the negotiating table with a new offer."
