JOURNALISTS FROM one of Germany’s most-respected broadsheet newspapers have gone on strike in a bitter argument over pay and working conditions.
More than 150 journalists from the Munich-based Suddeutsche Zeitungdowned tools on Wednesday between 8am and midnight, leaving a skeleton staff of senior editors to fill a smaller-than-usual paper with predominantly agency copy.
Yesterday’s edition of the paper carried a warning on the front page telling readers that because the journalists had gone on strike, along with workers at the print plant, the day’s paper would appear in a “different structure and would not be as up-to-date as usual”.
The striking journalists are unhappy that the paper’s publisher, Suddeutsche Zeitung GmbH, wants to cut their salaries and increase their working hours.
Currently, Suddeutsche Zeitungjournalists have a deal which means that rather than receiving 12 pay packets ar year, they get 13.75 – a not-uncommon arrangement in Germany known as Weihnachtsgeld, or Christmas money, because of the time of year the extra cash is dished out. The publisher wants to reduce this to 13.
The journalists are also protesting against plans to increase the normal working week from 36.5 hours to 40 hours with no financial compensation.
“That’s only one part of the publisher’s proposal,” wrote one of the striking journalists, deputy politics editor Detlef Esslinger, in a special piece in yesterday’s paper.
“Another thing they are demanding is especially controversial, which is to pay the next generation of journalists worse then the current crop.”
Under the new deal, said Esslinger, new recruits would receive €2,650 a month instead of €2,987 and, after seven years’ service, only €3,100, which would be €900 less than today.
In the print plant, he wrote, the publisher wants to slash future pension entitlements by half.
The strike was called by the German Association of Journalists (DJV), along with another trade union, Verdi.
In his piece, Esslinger also suggested journalists were being punished for their publisher’s lack of innovation.
“Many journalists think of their publishers as owners who are creative in cost-cutting but not in developing new business and revenue models,” he wrote.
“Why did they let the real estate adverts go elsewhere instead of building their own online portal?
“Why are they still giving away their journalists’ articles rather than finally making money from people who would rather learn about the end of Osama bin Laden online than in the paper?”
The publisher insists cuts are necessary because of the downturn in the print newspaper market. "Don't forget that German newspaper revenues are now 43 per cent lower than in 2000," said the publisher's president Helmut Heinen, in the Stuttgarter Zeitungnewspaper earlier this week. No one from Suddeutsche Zeitung GmbH had responded to calls at the time of going to press. – ( Guardianservice)