“This strike is historic. At the writing, the spirits are very heated, it is about the future of our newspaper. This is how an SNJ elected representative in South West describes to us the extent of the immediate strike voted on Tuesday by the journalists of the editorial staff of the daily newspaper of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
The editorial staff, through the voice of its elected representative, denounces a plan of “economic measures on the wage bill” of the management. “For the future departures of incumbents, their positions will no longer be filled and journalists on leave or on RTT will no longer be replaced”, protests the trade unionist. ” These measures [auront] a harmful effect on the working conditions and quality of journalists, denounces a group of striking journalists in a press release, this was experienced as contempt for journalists, but also as a deadly economic strategy. »
Probably no newspaper this Wednesday
This Tuesday, at 11 am, the editorial staff of the newspaper met in general assembly. At 2 p.m., the strike was voted by 90%. This immediate strike will be suspended as of this Tuesday evening, as soon as the services end. From Wednesday morning, the journalists will be back at their posts even if the unions do not rule out a new general assembly at this time. “In all likelihood, there will be no newspaper tomorrow [mercredi]. And as for that of Thursday, there is also a threat of non-publication, ”indicates an elected official.
An increase in the newspaper rate
Another point of contention between the editorial staff and the management, the price of the newspaper. On July 1, its price will drop from 1.40 to 1.50 euro. “We denounce this new model, whose pagination will be reduced and the price increased. The offer will be less good. We cannot offer this to our readers”, annoys the elected representatives of the SNJ.
Already in December, SNJ journalists had warned in a press release of the failure of negotiations to raise the salaries of permanent, fixed-term and freelancers, in the current context of high inflation. In the end, only 28 employees out of 723 permanent contracts had seen their incomes increased by 5%.
The unions also denounce the repeated use of precarious contracts (CDD or freelance). As a reminder, the management of the Sud Ouest group had been sentenced to the Prud’hommes to requalify the contract of one who had spent more than seven years on a fixed-term contract in an agency and who had been “dismissed without real and serious cause”. Another similar case in 2020 made noise in the press, after the overnight dismissal of a press cartoonist.