WORLD WORLDWIDE SPAIN News Journal Update - (en) Spaine, CNT-CIT #435: Press Agreement: wages below the Minimum Wage - J. Rodríguez (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 After two years of uninterrupted price rises, a large part of the

workers in the communication sector see how the possibility of
recovering purchasing power remains distant after the negotiations to
extend the daily press agreement have been blown up by the proposals of
the employer ---- The Association of Information Media (AMI) has closed
in band to improve its offer in the negotiation to renew the agreement
of the daily press after proposing a derisory increase of 1% of wages.
This salary increase would be equivalent to 24 euros per month in an
average salary of the agreement.
A handout to deal with the escalation in food, energy or rent prices
that has caused unanimous rejection by all media workers.

Inflation has made the precariousness imposed by an agreement even more
evident, the extension of which in 2019 was already denounced by the
CNT. Thus, with the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI)
to 1,080 euros per month, nine of the salaries included in the tables of
the 2019 agreement have fallen below this threshold.

These salaries correspond mainly to training contracts and the last
groups of the agreement, which include figures that in practice do not
exist in the media such as the "editor's assistant" and which are
systematically used fraudulently by companies to reduce the salaries of
employees. workers who start in the sector.

For this reason, one of the demands of CNT Prensa y Comunicación in view
of the new agreement is the elimination of these categories. In
addition, a salary increase is also required to allow all employees of
the country's newsrooms to lead a dignified life.

The union is demanding a retroactive increase of 8% for 2022 and another
8% for 2023, a revaluation in line with what has been agreed in other
sectors such as the contact center and consulting.

In addition, after years of endless days under extremely high pressure
to cover both the pandemic and its consequences and the current crisis
as a result of the war in Ukraine, from CNT we consider it necessary to
collect the right to digital disconnection and the obligation to make
risk reports psychosocial media of a certain size.

Workers from El País, El Mundo and Vocento, and numerous regional
newspapers, have called rallies to demand salary improvements after a
decade of frozen salaries and a general reduction in the conditions for
the workforce as a result of the latest crises.

STREET PROTESTS
The communication sector has been losing union tradition while
digitalization has ended the workshops where newspapers were printed and
has fragmented the scene, with many small media without connection and
ties between them and committees absent from the day-to-day life of
newsrooms .
However, workers in the sector, represented by CNT among other
organizations, protested last December at the annual awards ceremony of
the Information Media Association (AMI), the employers' association of
the sector. A group of CNT comrades interrupted the act and unfurled a
banner under the slogan 'Enough of Shitty Wages' in front of some
executives who patted each other on the back for the progress of their
businesses, while in the negotiations of the agreement they deny some
conditions honor their employees.

The protests have continued with a CNT concentration outside the
employers' headquarters in March to keep up the pressure and force new
negotiations to bring better conditions for media workers.

The discontent in the workforce is not limited to the workers covered by
the sectoral agreement and, since the beginning of the year, the
mobilizations have multiplied among the media throughout the national
territory.

Thus, workers from El País, El Mundo and Vocento, the company that owns
ABC and numerous regional newspapers, have called rallies to demand
better wages after a decade of frozen wages and a general reduction in
the conditions for the workforce as a result of the latest crises. .
Other media, such as the Diario de Mallorca have gone on strike for the
same reasons.

For the moment, the managers of the sector continue to turn a deaf ear
to these demands, while on their social networks they continue to share
articles about teleworking, the four-day workday or the need for the
wages made by some workers to grow who are denied these equal rights.

This situation forces us to continue the pressure in the streets and to
set the goal of calling new mobilizations that bring together the
workers of a sector in which precariousness and individualism have been
the norm for too long.

https://www.cnt.es/noticias/convenio-de-prensa-sueldos-por-debajo-del-salario-minimo/
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