Journalists protest against redundancies in Lausanne

Between 11 a.m. and 12 noon on Wednesday, around 50 journalists vented their discontent with a sit-in in front of the Edipress building. They were protesting against the dismissal of ten colleagues at the free newspapers Matin Bleu and 20 minutes. According to SDA, the participants in the sit-in criticized the fact that neither the editorial offices nor the staff associations had been consulted prior to the dismissals. The ten people affected had learned of the redundancies on Tuesday on the occasion of the merger of the two free newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland.
According to the union, the publishers of Edipresse and Tamedia have thus broken the rules: According to Dominique Diserens, secretary of the journalists' union Impressum, the law stipulates that publishers must meet with the social partners in advance of such layoffs in order to seek alternatives to the terminations. The publishers of Edipresse and Tamedia offered talks on Wednesday for the next day. Impressum hopes that the proposals of the two editorial offices will then be heard, Diserens added.
The last issue of Matin Bleu will be published on Friday. On Monday, the two editorial teams will already be working under one roof with the title 20 minutes.