Journalists' organizations demand compliance with labor law
Labor inspectorates in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino are to inspect all newsrooms not covered by collective bargaining agreements to determine whether companies are complying with labor law. This is being called for by the Syndicom union and the Impressum journalists' association.
Without a collective labor agreement (CLA), the law is the only way to protect the health of media workers, the two organizations wrote in a statement Tuesday. In addition, Syndicom and Impressum launched a petition to the Swiss Media Association. After ten years of a contractless state, negotiations for a CLA should be held again.
Hanspeter Lebrument, President of the Swiss Media Association, said in response to a question that a sectoral CLA was not up for discussion. If an individual publisher wants to negotiate a CLA with employee representatives, there is nothing to stop it.
Last year, the unions had used various actions to draw attention to the "increasingly poor working conditions of journalists". Charges were filed against several media companies. In response, some employers have introduced working time recording. Where there are problems with labor laws, these should be settled between the publisher and the employees, Lebrument said. Labor laws must be complied with - whether with or without a CLA. There is no connection there. A new collective labor agreement for journalists has been in force in French-speaking Switzerland since 2014. (SDA)
