Why journalists rarely go on strike

The opinion of the former boss of the Kurir newspaper has been definitely proven correct – in today's Serbia, journalists are the cheapest workforce. They live in extreme poverty. The exact level of salaries of media employees is a million dollar question, but it is public knowledge that they are less paid than their comparable counterparts in education, health care, public administration...

According to official statistical data, the average salary in April 2011 amounted to 39,298 dinars. In Belgrade, the average salary was 20 percent higher, while in the southern part of Serbia it was 13 percent lower. At the same time, media workers in Belgrade consider themselves lucky if their earnings reach anywhere near this average level, while in the south such a figure is rarely seen. Generally speaking, most media employees do not receive their salaries on time, while the number of those who receive nothing is constantly increasing.

In a country where absurdity is an inevitable part of everyday life, journalism is an especially tragi-comic profession. On one hand, everyone talks about European standards, the fight for freedom, legal improvements and ethical rules. We have recently witnessed the formation of the Press Council, which is a self-regulatory body with a mission to advance the professional ethics, and to prevent claimants' complaints and harsh verdicts against journalists. On the other hand, media companies are reducing salaries and laying off journalists – victims of bad business results and the economic crisis. Collective contracts, as a self-regulatory mechanism that exists between labor and capital, appear only in imagination of desperate workers who have been labeled as technological surplus by HR departments, often after 20-30 years of professional experience, and often without clear criteria or severance pays.
At the same time, the audience, often quite justifiably, criticize journalists for lying or – euphemistically speaking – for trying to present the reality in a more favorable light. And, of course, for trying to charge as much money as possible for their service.

Last April, when journalists in Greece, dissatisfied with state-imposed financial austerity, kept their country in a media darkness for four days, their Serbian colleagues approved their actions, but secretly. The news about the strike was published on the last pages of newspapers and most obscure broadcasting time slots. Strikes in the region – in Vecernji List newspaper from Zagreb and Glas Istre – received even less media attention, although they were organized because of employers' failure to adhere to collective contracts. A similar treatment was given to the strikes of employees in Radio Smederevo and weekly magazine Svetlost from Kragujevac.

This lack of interest of our media outlets in revolts of journalists in the neighborhood and the region is easy to explain – it is caused by the fear of the possibility of spreading of trade unions, which has resulted in a mutual solidarity between media owners and their editors/managers. But what about the interest and solidarity of journalists and their fellow sufferers in editorial offices of media outlets? They are afraid of losing their jobs – the jobs that are not paid anyway. Jobs that are gradually disappearing.
Why are journalists in Serbia so willing to suffer? Why don't they stage protests and fight back? Why don't they stop working or – like teachers – shorten their working hours and submit reports without a single answer to the five famous journalistic questions – who, what, where, when and why? Why do they decide to close their notebooks and turn off their voice recorders and cameras only after suffering immense poverty, powerlessness, and months without any paychecks? Why do they suffer humiliation without complaining and continue working in silence when their colleagues in other media outlets are humiliated?

"In this country, people went out in the streets only to support Slobo, Serbia and Serbian unity, but no one has ever been interested in trade unions." This is how a disappointed trade union member explained the low turnout and the small number of people who gathered at the Square of Nikola Pasic to celebrate the International Workers' Day. In today's Serbia, trade unions are still rarely mentioned.

Svetozar Rakovic

About the authors

MC Newsletter, June 3, 2011