Labour Right Experts Meet to Discuss Challenges

The Labour Rights Expert Group (LAREG) of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) met on 10 April in Würzburg to discuss challenges faced by journalists to defend their labour and social rights in the media crisis. The meeting was hosted by the affiliate in Germany, DJV's Bavarian branch (BJV - Bayerischer Journalisten-Verband). National experts from the EFJ affiliates in Belgium, Greece, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland have highlighted the impact of austerity measures and job cuts on the working conditions of journalists. Journalists in Greece and Spain are hardest hit by the crisis which has led to the recent closure of the public broadcasting services, ERT (Greece) and TV Valencia (Spain). Thousands of journalists lost their jobs and the quality of journalism is at stake.In Switzerland, journalists also faced the pressure to take up more tasks with less pay. The union, impressum, is negotiating a new collective agreement with the provision of a 13^th month pay.For more information about the meeting discussion and the national development of the labour law situation in the media sector, please contact Yuk Lan Wong ( +32 2 2352 226) or visit the Labour Rights page.