As part of the Trade Unions for a Fair Recovery project led by the European Federation of Journalists, we are in the process of holding workshops on the importance of collective bargaining in local media and newsrooms throughout Croatia. That is why the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists and BRID delegation visited Radio Sisak.
In the conversation with the workers and the director of the radio, we got acquainted with all the problems that burden this radio.
As it is a local radio that broadcasts a program in an area that was economically and demographically devastated even before the earthquake, it is clear that the financial self-sustainability of the radio solely through advertising revenues is almost impossible. Although local and regional self-government units have a legal obligation to spend part of their budgets on grants or advertising in local media, in the case of Radio Sisak these funds are almost insignificant.
As our colleagues explained to us, the reason for the weak advertising or leasing of media space by local and regional governments lies in the fact that the editorial policy of this radio is very clear – there is no pandering or uncritical approach when reporting on their work, so they suspect that this is also the reason why are they bypassed.
Despite this, Radio Sisak maintains high standards of editorial policy and regularly monitors and reports on everything that happens in the city of Sisak and Sisak-Moslavina County so that their listeners always have accurate and timely information.
They also warned us that the problem with national state bodies such as ministries and agencies, as well as business entities that operate at the national level, is that they regularly decide to lease media space from radio stations that have a national concession, while they ignore local radio stations.
One of the main obstacles to the recovery and rescue of local media, in this case radio, is insufficient regulation of this segment of economic activity. For example, the practice is that many local media are partially owned by local and regional self-government units. In many cases, this also means constant pressure from these units on the editorial policy.
When it is moved to the national level, many local media lost the possibility to apply for grants to preserve jobs due to the COVID epidemic if local and regional self-government units have a share of ownership in these media greater than 25 percent. Those units have not helped, and radio stations cannot come up with the funds for salaries on their own amid a drastic decline in advertising.
In addition to all that, if they want to apply for tenders for state grants and other financial instruments, they regularly receive rejections that they are not an acceptable activity, while at the same time they are expected to pay all the fees like all other economic entities on the market. On the one hand, radio stations are said to be an activity that is important for the public interest, on the other hand, they are treated as commercial companies burdened with concessions, technical conditions and enormous needs for equipment modernization that no one wants to co-finance.
Although, as they say, every month is a struggle, the team from Radio Sisak does not despair, but works hard and despite everything also understands the value of collective agreements and negotiations, so the BRID’s representative’s presentation on the importance of collective agreements and protection of workers’ rights was followed with equal interest by the director of the radio and all the workers.
It is important to encourage a culture of collective bargaining, so that both workers in the local media and owners understand that the collective agreement is not a burden for the owners that only talks about the salary level, but that they can also agree on better working conditions such as: working hours, interpersonal relations, protection of the safety of journalists, etc. Also, when a collective agreement is signed, these editorial offices become social partners and can equally participate in the pressures on political actors who create laws.
After the meeting, it was agreed that the TUCJ, at the national level and in regular communication with relevant ministries and agencies, will loudly and clearly warn of all the problems local media are facing and offer possible solutions.
