Bund and Berner Zeitung staff publish manifesto

Above all, clarity must be provided quickly as to who will be affected by the job cuts, said the Manifesto. Moreover, the two staffs see in the new structures indications that the job cuts should not be at the expense of the cadre, but of the journalists - and thus at the expense of "the anchoring in the region".

According to the manifesto, a greatly reduced editorial team in the future would be responsible for two newspapers and two online portals that pretend to be of different content. "In fact, however, pages and articles are merely shifted back and forth between the titles like backdrops: Readers are being taken for fools."

Check alternative models

The staff supported by the journalists' association Imprint and the Syndicom trade union emphasize that they are not closing their eyes to the economic reality in the media industry. However, they also point to the facts that Tamedia's parent company TX Group paid out 37 million francs in dividends in the past pandemic year and received millions in short-time compensation from the federal government.

The planned reduction of 20 full-time positions would mean the loss of around 30 employees. It would be unrealistic to compensate for this through natural fluctuation. The employees are therefore calling on the parent company to seriously examine alternative models.

At the beginning of April, the Zurich-based media company Tamedia announced that it would close the editorial offices of Bernese Newspaper and Confederation and is expected to cut 20 full-time jobs (Werbewoche.ch reported). However, the two titles are to remain independent. Following a loss of more than CHF 100 million for the TX Group in the first half of 2020, Tamedia already announced last October that the editorial teams of Bund and Berner Zeitung would move even closer together. (SDA)