Baz-Druckerei: Warning strike and struggle for social plan
Due to a warning strike at its printing plant, the Basler Zeitung (Baz) was printed at Tamedia in Zurich on Sunday night. This comes amid the ongoing dispute over the severance plan related to the closure of the Basler Zeitungsdruckerei, which was announced for April.
The presses were shut down at 11 p.m. Sunday, according to the Syndicom union. Work resumed at 6 a.m. Monday, a Syndicom spokeswoman said. The strike was orderly and without incident, she said. The management of the Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM) had presented a social plan on Thursday, which according to the union was not sufficient for the staff. Central open demand was a severance payment of 1'000 francs per year of service. As BZM did not respond by Friday evening as requested, a strike was called.
BZM: Strike is illegal
For the BZM management, however, the strike is "unlawful", as it announced: At the time of the start, clarifications were still underway and negotiations were pending. BZM therefore wants to "confront" the president of the personnel commission. It also reserves the right to take further steps. A BZM spokesman did not want to comment on the main demand for severance pay to the SDA news agency. This had only arrived on Friday, and the new ultimatum of the staff runs until 6 p.m. on Tuesday. A decision will then be made at the next works meeting on Wednesday afternoon. BZM will probably only be able to comment again after that.
Most Baz subscribers nevertheless received the paper on Monday, albeit with a delay in some cases. It was printed according to a "contingency plan" at Tamedia in Zurich; from there it's sent by truck to Basel. On the other hand, the part of the print run that was sent by mail - about one tenth - was completely cancelled.
72 print shop employees facing dismissal
From April, the Baz will be printed by Tamedia anyway, because BZM is closing its own printing plant at the end of March for profitability reasons (Werbewoche.ch reported). This affects 96 employees, 72 of whom are to be laid off. Preparations for this printing job are already underway, so Tamedia was able to take over at short notice during the strike. Incidentally, the strike also affected a partial run of the Coop newspaper, which is printed by BZM. This should have a delay of a good six hours on the usual production and distribution schedule - normally this paper is in mailboxes on Tuesdays. (SDA)
