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Marina Nikolova

Television technicians working with teams outside the studios are most affected by redundancies in televisions. Over the past two years, technicians signed collective agreements under which the 2009 wages increased by 5.6 percent, and they gave up the 2010 wages increase in order the televisions to be able to handle the severe economic situation and not to lay off people. However, many people were dismissed in 2009: 15 technicians from the private ANT1 TV, 25-30 people from Alpha and about 10 people from Alter, said Thodoris Manousakis from the managing board of the union of technicians in private televisions. In 2010 ANT1 fired about ten technicians, STAR also fired about ten people, but the private media of the Communist Party 902, which is the most loud opponent of dismissals, laid off twenty people.  

Most of the already unemployed are operators, electronic technicians, editors, assistant producers and even hairdressers and many of them are from teams that work outside the studios "Most televisions hire personnel from external companies. These employees either do not declare their income, or do not pay insurances," explained Manousakis who added that this reduced the costs of one shift and it is cheaper for the television in financial terms to pay for external collaborators rather than to use its own and to pay insurances and taxes for them.

Cameramen and audio operators are most demanded as external collaborators. "Although by law employees of all specialties who work in television and filmmaking must be insured at IKA, external collaborators are insured at other health funds and declare photography as occupation, for example, and pay less," said Thodoris Manousakis. Permanent technicians in turn will obviously face a reduction of wages amounting to about 10% -20% because they were informed that advertising revenue fell by 30% -40%.

At the beginning of the next week the union of technicians working in private televisions will meet with their employers to negotiate the new branch agreements. So far, all employees have been permanently appointed in televisions but employers want to be able to sign temporary contracts which the unions will attempt to rebut. The point is that permanent contracts guarantee the right to compensation in case of dismissal.

One of the serious problems faced by operators is that they will henceforth have to deal with everything - sound, editing, directing. According to Manousakis, the aim of the employers is to eliminate all specialties and everyone to cope with many things that will be achieved with the help of trainings. By saying that cameramen will use smaller cameras and because of technology development the owners of TV stations want to remove external assistant cameramen and audio operators. But "the smaller camera does not change the mode of operation." And here come a very practical issue and a delusion.

The delusion is that only the camera is smaller but it is not technologically new. "The new technology is high definition but such cameras will not be used in the next three years," according to Manousakis. And the practical issue comes out from the nature of the work. A cameraman who goes to an emergency event such as fire or riots and has to quickly get to the scene can ask his assistant or audio operator to park the car and he himself will be able to get out of the car quickly to shoot. On the other hand, if unrest happens in the turbulent times in which we live, strikers and demonstrators vent their anger against the police first, and the next are the cameramen. But when you have an assistant he looks behind you, keeps you, otherwise your camera could be broken. So, it is a matter of security," said the television technician.

In addition to the uncertainty concerning the collective agreements of television technicians in private televisions in general, all employees of Alter TV announced a 24-hour strike yesterday because they have not been paid since December. Due to the financial difficulties the TV channel is experiencing its future and its employees’ future are not clear yet. "Employees can not live in that state of uncertainty and are entitled to better attitude" by the private television management said a letter of the strikers.

Meanwhile, the coordinating council of the union of employees in the media decided to officially declare that it will participate in the 24-hour strike on February 23 announced by GSEE trade union which includes all trade union organizations.