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Anastasia Balezdrova

Over three thousand journalists, radio and TV technicians have gathered today in front of the journalists' union in Athens to express their discontent against the severe economic measures taken by the Greek government.

In their speeches, their trade union leaders urged them not to reconcile with the policy of the Greek government and announced their intention to hold new strikes early next week "in order to hold a permanent strike."

Then, media representatives held a protest procession in the streets of central Athens. It passed by the Ministry of Finance and ended outside the Parliament building. Employees of the financial institution who have been occupying the building for days greeted the journalists from the windows. Slogans were heard that "in this battle we are the winners."

Although they took part in a general protest, journalists and technicians were in different parts of the procession, divided into groups. One of them included journalists from state media, the other - those working in different newspapers. The supporters of the Communist Party and some leftist political parties had tried to distinguish themselves by carrying flags and slogans with typical messages.

Konstantinos, who is a representative of the workers in one of the largest private Greek television stations, presented the reasons for the strike for GRReporter readers. 

"I think that the demands of all journalists are the same as the claims of all other workers, although we are on strike a day earlier. I think our decision to hold a strike today is right because every time journalists are on strike alongside others, false and completely nonexistent news appears. As a result, society is confused and a feeling emerges that the country is on the brink of collapse.

Tomorrow, when the 48-hour strike by trade unions will start, there will be no newspapers in the kiosks. Thus, our strike is tangible for the citizens. On the other hand, we are protecting information and the presentation of the strike from the rest of society and tomorrow we will broadcast it live on all television and radio stations. I think that our position is in support of society.
 
As for our demands, as I said they do not differ from the demands of society. It is unfeasible for the Government to "attack" with a heavy tax policy only where it can, while for two years it has been saying that it had to chase those who do not pay taxes. If it had done so now we would not have any problems. Mr. Venizelos has been repeating this since he took up the post of Minister of Finance, his predecessor George Papaconstantinou was doing exactly the same. We are talking about two years, during which they were repeating the same thing without doing anything in that direction. And instead, the government is attacking the weaker."

According to Konstantinos, his colleagues from the public media should be excluded from the measures to be introduced for the entire public sector with the bill which it is expected will be voted on this Thursday. "If the unified payroll table is applied to ERT and other public media, their insurances will be transferred to the national insurance fund IKA. If the insurance funds of journalists are deprived of the contributions of 3000 colleagues, they will simply collapse. The same will happen if Article 37 of the bill is approved, which will remove all collective labour agreements. In this case, associations composed of the staff of a company or from one of the media will be allowed to sign a contract with the employer, which would provide even salary cuts. In this case, the fund of journalists will be seriously affected because it will continue to provide pensions based on the old salaries but it will receive contributions calculated on the basis of the new, lower salaries. In this way, the budget gap will become larger and the collapse will not be late in coming. Therefore, I would like to emphasize that the demands of journalists from ERT and other public media are the same as the demands of all journalists."

Despite the massive participation of media representatives in today's protest, GRReporter sought the opinion of one of the journalists who are against media strikes and the demands of their counterparts in the public media to be "saved" from the measures in the new bill. Dimitris Triandafilidis who is an experienced chief editor in the foreign-language section of Athens Municipal Radio 984 Athens explained the reasons that make him oppose the media strikes.

"The strike in the radio has been going on for six days already and apparently, it will continue. Personally, I am of the opinion that journalists should strike, when all other professional groups strike, because in this way people are uninformed and left to government propaganda.

Secondly, I think we have remembered too late that the bill makes us civil servants. Since we are working in the public media, we are civil servants. The claim that this is not the case could be defined as hypocrisy, at the very least.

Thirdly, and most importaly, I do not believe that journalists should be excluded from the measures that the government is taking for all other citizens. I say this because our strike is not against the bill, but because we want to exclude ourselves from the measures provided in it. I do not think that once we have this position, we have the right to follow and criticize the actions of the government or any other social group as "corporate interests". I am against the strike for precisely these moral reasons."

"I do not agree that all journalists are the same," said Dimitris and stressed that it is unethical on the one hand, for journalists to want to live in a completely isolated and secure environment and, on the other, to have the right to express opinion and to criticize all others. "We do not fall into any famous definition of "journalists - cheaters and informers," nor are we against society. I want to be together with other citizens, not against them. I want to fight for the abolition of all the measures the government is taking. But I do not want to fight for my exclusion from them. I do not want to be the exception. The police, military, judges, diplomats and priests, i.e. the pillars, which sustain the system, were excluded from the bill. I think it is immoral for journalists to be included among them."

At the same time, journalist unions in Athens and Thessaloniki announced a new 48-hour strike in public and local media on Wednesday and Thursday. Technicians in Thessaloniki, who were at work today, will also be on strike together with the other professional groups over the next two days.