Strike at Public Broadcasters in Northern Greece

Media workers working for Northern Greece's stations of the national Public Broadcaster ERT SA are to hold a 24-hour strike on June 9, protesting the state's plan to shut down regional public broadcasting stations.

Believing that the public broadcaster in every country is a cornerstone of free information and content quality and that these measures are injurious to media independence, the journalists are striking against the following:

1. Shutting down and/or merging of regional stations: The state's plan to downsize the three major public TV and radio stations will severely handicap the role of public broadcasting.

2. Lack of a collective agreement: Media workers in public television and radio stations have not been covered by a collective agreement since the year 2008, even though the State had vowed the renewal of a collective agreement as of the year 2009

3. Pay cuts: ERT media workers have suffered wage losses that in many cases amount to more than 30 percent - constituting the largest pay slashes enforced throughout the public sector by the State's austerity measures.


The strike is to start  on Thursday, June 9, at 6 am and will end on Friday, June 10, at 6 a.m.

Contact: Journalists' Union of Thrace and Macedonia: [email protected]