Syndicom and Imprint criticize: "SDA Board of Directors does not want real arbitration".
After four rounds of negotiations, the editorial staff’s key demands were not met. Only minor common ground was reached between the editorial staff’s delegation and that of the SDA’s board of directors. Syndicom and Impressum warn that mediation by the federal conciliation board will only be effective if the layoffs remain suspended.
The delegation of the Board of Directors had already unilaterally appealed to the Federal Conciliation Board for the Settlement of Collective Labor Disputes (EES) on Friday. According to a statement issued on Monday, the editorial delegation considers external mediation to be worth considering in principle, provided that all redundancy measures remain suspended. Mediation would only be effective if the management did not create a fait accompli. Mediation requires that the subject of the mediation does not become obsolete in the meantime. For this reason, the Syndicom trade union and the Impressum professional association demand in their press releases that no further terminations should be made until the end of the mediation and that the deadlines for terminations already issued should remain suspended. The editorial meeting will decide on the editorial team's position on external mediation and how to proceed.
The editorial team's main demands consist of the following five points:
- Reduction of downsizing measures, based on a jointly developed editorial strategy
- Suspension of all redundancies and downsizing measures until an editorial strategy is in place
- Social plan that offers fair conditions, particularly for those close to retirement age
- A commitment to comprehensive public service that remains enshrined in the agency's guidelines
- The coverage from SDA's reserves (over 16 million) of the deficit caused by price pressure from publishers (and owners of SDA)
After the SDA management wanted to cut 35.6 of 150 full-time journalistic positions in January and a short warning strike failed to make any progress, the SDA editorial team went on indefinite strike on January 30, 2018. This was suspended on February 2 in favor of negotiations with the Board of Directors.
