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Anastasia Balezdrova 

Some of the most familiar faces of national television today stood before the representatives of other media. For the first time, they gave a press conference to present their positions and not to give the floor to someone else.

"We are not, never were, and never will be civil servants," said the journalists from the public radio and TV broadcaster ERT, national news agency ANA, Athens Municipal Radio 984 and all other local radio stations in the country.

Since last Thursday, the three national television channels have been broadcasting no live programmes, and the messages of the POSPERT union often interrupt documentaries to inform viewers about the purpose of the strike. Public media employees, and journalists in particular, are opposing the government's decision to include them in the unified payroll table and apply the rules of the labour reserve to them. "A few months ago, they turned ERT from a limited liability company into a state enterprise. Since then, our salaries have been reduced by 35 per cent, there has been no increase since 2008. Now, they want to include us in the total payroll table and eliminate collective labour agreements," said a representative of public radio employees. "We are not afraid to be assessed. What is frightening us is how someone will come and assess who of us will stay and who will stop working."

According to journalists, state media are an easy target for the government and its sole purpose is to cut costs, having no concern about anything else.

"Making us civil servants will immediately exclude us from the journalists' insurance and health fund and will take us to the general insurance fund IKA. Not only will we lose all contributions paid to date, but the funds will also suffer losses because they will be deprived of our regularly paid fees," said Denia Sarakini, who is a news presenter and has a programme on the national radio in parallel.

Her colleague Pinelopi Gavra described the problems of journalists working on the basis of fixed-term labour agreements, which for some, last for decades. "Our agreements expire on 17 January 2012. After this date, we will not know who of us will stay and what the criteria will be for those who will have to leave."

According to the journalists, defining them as civil servants violates the provisions of the Greek Constitution, which protect freedom of speech and press.

Prokopis Doukas, who is one of the most familiar faces on the Greek TV screen, did not mince words saying that for years ERT has been going along the wrong path. "It is difficult to accept that an experienced journalist who is in a responsible position or who presents a news programme can receive one-twentieth of the salary, which is offered on the market. It is hard to understand why it is also possible for a man in the public sector, whose abilities are at the level of basic education, to receive twice as much salary than an experienced journalist with one or two university degrees." He touched on the issue of the presence of too many journalists in the public media: "There are no radio and television media in the world that do not use their employees in different ways. I.e., when a reporter is a specialist in a particular area, he or she is used in television and radio, multimedia, anywhere. For this to happen in ERT is virtually impossible. Now, the way things are going, there will be no such opportunity. In this line of thought, I fail to understand how costs will be limited when three journalists will take the place of one. I think in this way, within populist rhetoric about the possibility of one person having two jobs, we would see a "Sovietization" of ERT. All of us will receive the same low wages, whether or not we are good at our job, or whether we do many, or not so many things. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the level of workers in ERT would gradually decrease, because there would be no incentive to 'return the value' of the quality of workers."
 
The representative of the employees in the national news agency ANA, Michalis Psilos, and representatives of local radio stations described the almost identical problems of their colleagues.

Two lawyers explained to journalists the changes expected to occur in labour relations if the bill of the Ministry of Finance is voted on Thursday.

Journalists urged their colleagues also from the private media to resist the severe measures because "it is their turn." Tomorrow, employees in all Greek media will hold a 24-hour strike for the first time on a different day than the other professional groups. "Hopefully, journalists will fill up Akadimias Avenue tomorrow. This would be a very strong message to the government," was the call of one of the lawyers, who explained that claims would be filed to European and international legal institutions against the definition of journalists as civil servants and the resulting changes.