Trade unions: Merger of Kommunikation and Comedia definitive
Nothing now stands in the way of the merger between the two unions, Kommunikation and Comedia. After Comedia gave the merger the green light on Saturday, the delegates of the Kommunikation union also voted in favor of it on Monday, by a margin of 145 to 4.
The new union - currently still nameless - is to be launched on January 1, 2011. The united union will have 48,000 members. The Comedia union is anchored in the graphic arts, packaging, media and book industries. It has around 13,000 members. The Communications union, for its part, has its roots in the employees of companies of the former PTT. It has around 35,000 members. The merger creates the second-largest trade union within the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions.
The new union makes it easier to conduct campaigns, said Roland Kreuzer, Co-President of Comedia, when asked by the SDA news agency on Tuesday. In order to negotiate a collective labor agreement, for example, not only negotiations are needed today, but it is also necessary to exert pressure via the public. Kreuzer did not want to describe the merger as a survival strategy, but as a "political strategy". By merging, Comedia and GeKo were responding to the structural change in the media and communications sectors. Everyone involved in the work chain, from the IT sector to journalists, should be united under one roof. The merger is also intended to strengthen the presence in the regions: the new union has 15 regional secretariats. It is still too early to make any definitive personnel plans, said GeKo Central President Alain Carrupt. However, no redundancies are planned.
The new union makes it easier to conduct campaigns, said Roland Kreuzer, Co-President of Comedia, when asked by the SDA news agency on Tuesday. In order to negotiate a collective labor agreement, for example, not only negotiations are needed today, but it is also necessary to exert pressure via the public. Kreuzer did not want to describe the merger as a survival strategy, but as a "political strategy". By merging, Comedia and GeKo were responding to the structural change in the media and communications sectors. Everyone involved in the work chain, from the IT sector to journalists, should be united under one roof. The merger is also intended to strengthen the presence in the regions: the new union has 15 regional secretariats. It is still too early to make any definitive personnel plans, said GeKo Central President Alain Carrupt. However, no redundancies are planned.
Weakening of journalists feared
The new union is an "open project", said Roland Kreuzer. He hopes that at some point it will be possible to unite with the journalists' association Impressum and the Swiss Syndicate of Media Professionals (SSM). For Impressum, joining the new communications union is currently out of the question. According to Managing Director Urs Thalmann, the association fears a weakening of the journalism industry. "Our biggest concern is that the merger of Comedia and GeKo will undermine the interests of journalists." The approximately 4,000 journalists at Comedia would only be a minority in the merged union. In addition, the concerns of journalists often do not coincide with those of other professional groups.
