German expert exchanges collective bargaining strategies with Romanian journalists
Collective bargaining and agreement play a key role in improving the working conditions of journalists. International solidarity and exchange of good practices sometimes can be very helpful for the national negotiation.
Thanks to the EU-funded Managing Change in Media‘s project framework, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) sent the collective bargaining expert Dennis Amour from its Germany affiliate to support journalists in Romanian (FAIR-MediaSind) for an Expert Exchange Visit.
Lawyer and journalist, Dennis Amour, director of the Collective Bargaining Department of the Union of Journalists in Bavaria (BJV) spent two days ( 28 & 30 October) in Bucharest with leaders of FAIR-MediaSind and representatives of MediaSind TVR to prepare them for the new round of collective agreement negotiation with the Romanian public service media TVR.
During the meetings, Amour explained the negotiation tactics applied in the collective agreements of the public media in Germany. He shared the processes of bargaining, including the rights obtained by the bargaining team, modalities and examples of union actions, ways to solve the individual problems of the employees.
Some of the topics discussed included collective agreements (which are the negotiation procedures, shared good practices, its applicability for employees and freelances…etc), trade union structures, minimum wage (for employees and freelances), working conditions and intellectual property rights.
Amour also expressed the message of support from fellow journalists in Germany and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) to FAIR-MediaSind journalists. Amour said, “I and the journalists in Germany will back the negotiation of the Collective Labor Agreement with the National Television Corporation. I am ready to share my expertise with you.”
The Expert Exchange Visit (EEV) is part of the EFJ project Managing Change in Media. It allows the EFJ members to request a union expert for national training and coaching on union related subjects – collective bargaining, labour rights, authors’ rights, public broadcasting, recruitment and organising and so on. If you are interested, please contact Yuk Lan Wong (yuklan@europeanjournalists.org) for more information. Applications for our new round of EEV is open now!
