Imprint rejects industry agreement - publishers' association regrets decision

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The Swiss Media Publishers Association regrets that, after 30 rounds of negotiations, the impressum delegates have rejected an industry agreement for media professionals that had been negotiated over several years. The social partnership agreement would have meant advantageous minimum working conditions, particularly with regard to minimum wages, additional days off, vacation entitlement, continued payment of wages as well as maternity and parental leave, for around 4,000 employed journalists in Switzerland. The employment relationship with freelancers should continue to be governed by individual contracts.

Missed opportunity for media professionals

According to the publishers' association, impressum's rejection of the industry agreement is a missed opportunity for employees working for private media publishers. Media professionals would have benefited in many ways from the agreement, which would apply to both large and small publishers in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino.

The monthly starting salary for permanent journalists should now have been at least CHF 5,300 (for publishers with fewer than 500 employees) or CHF 5,800 (for more than 500 employees). For technical editorial staff, it would have been CHF 5,000 and CHF 5,300 respectively.

In the case of sick pay, employees would have received 100 percent of their salary for the first 30 days after the end of the probationary period and 80 percent of their salary for the following 690 days. Additional days off would have been granted to employees who work on at least 15 Sundays or public holidays within the meaning of the Labor Act or who work 25 or more nights at night.

The vacation entitlement would have been five weeks, and six weeks from the age of 50. In addition to the statutory maternity leave, the daily allowances of the EO would have been supplemented to 100 percent of the salary and the leave would have been extended by two weeks, whereby at least 80 percent of the salary would have been paid during the extension. The leave of the other parent would also have been supplemented to 100 percent of salary for two weeks.

Criticism of maximum demands

In the view of the publishers' association, it is regrettable that impressum wanted to regulate the situation of freelance journalists in the industry agreement. This has always been regulated by tried and tested individual contractual agreements. According to Schweizer Medien, the impressum delegates' demand that at least two thirds of the members of the publishers' association should sign up to the agreement is also incomprehensible.

The industry agreement stipulates that this will come into force when three quarters of the media professionals working for the members of the Publishers Association with qualifying activities have signed up to it. This would have benefited around 4,000 employed media professionals in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino.

With its maximum demands, impressum is closing its eyes to the challenges facing publishers, criticizes the publishers' association: declining media consumption, advertising money flowing abroad to big tech companies and the unsolicited and unpaid takeover of content by AI providers. Against this backdrop, the willingness of media companies to enter into the industry agreement is all the more important, according to the association.

Willingness to engage in dialog remains

The Swiss Media Publishers Association is maintaining its willingness to engage in dialog and is not ruling out a return to the negotiating table. This includes the fact that the offer of an industry agreement made to the employee side - subject to acceptance by the members of the Publishers Association - is currently still valid. impressum and Syndicom have it in their hands to contribute to strengthening Switzerland as a media center with minimum working conditions for around 4,000 affected employees.