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After four years of tough negotiations, a new collective agreement for journalists has finally been concluded, effective from 1 July 2013. The collective agreement covers both print and online journalists, and gives equal treatment to the two employee groups for the first time. The deal also means regularly employed freelance journalists are covered by the agreement. Last year the employers had threatened to pull out of talks and cancel journalists’ contracts.
Negotiations in Austria between the sectoral social partners responsible for collective bargaining in the journalism sector started in 2009. The Austrian Newspaper Association (VÖZ) and the Union for Salaried Employees, Journalists and Graphical Workers (GPA-djp) have finally signed a new collective agreement which will include online journalists for the first time.
Talks were still going on at the end of September 2012. But after three years and 31 rounds of negotiations, in which no agreement could be found, the VÖZ lost patience and threatened to pull out of the existing collective agreement. It said all journalists’ contracts would be cancelled at the end of the year. The association also said it would withdraw the cancellation should a new agreement be reached by the end of the year.
The negotiating parties decided to resume negotiations following demonstrations by the union. They signed a memorandum of understanding in which the VÖZ agreed to reverse its cancellation of the collective agreement and the GPA-djp withdrew its threatened industrial action.
Fresh dates for further negotiating rounds were set with the aim of reaching a deal on a new collective agreement to be effective from 1 July 2013.
After several further negotiating rounds in late 2012 and early 2013, an agreement on all major issues was finally reached in March 2013. Following its acceptance by the trade union’s journalist members and the VÖZ’s executive board, the collective agreement was signed on 7 June 2013. It now applies to both print and online editorial staff of daily and weekly newspapers and to technical-editorial staff such as employees engaged in layout, graphic design, image editing and cutting.
Previously, editorial staff who worked in online media were not included in the journalists’ collective agreement.
They were outsourced to separate companies owned by the media houses and covered by different collective agreements similar to ones in the IT sector for advertising staff or for general trade. This meant that online journalists did not receive the same pay and benefits as their print colleagues.
Also included in the agreement is a section that states that permanent freelance staff now have to be regularly employed. This means they become liable to mandatory social security contributions.
The journalists have had to agree to some less favourable terms. There is a reduction of lifetime earnings for journalists (earnings over the course of a person’s career) and the cancellation of the 15th month salary – in Austria, collective agreements will typically provide workers with a 13th and a 14th month salary.
Transitional rules for those employees who were covered by the ‘old’ collective agreement are to be applied, with the 15th month salary to be split up and distributed over the remaining 14 monthly payments. At the same time, wages for those covered under the previous deal will go up at only half the annually agreed rate of increase. This will continue until journalists on the ‘old’ deal and the ‘new’ collective agreement reach parity.
Starting salaries in the new collective agreement have been set well below those in the previous one. In the first year of employment, the monthly salary for journalists is now €2,185, down from €2,541. After three years, a so-called standard wage level is reached and there are no higher wage groups. Instead, so-called ‘quinquennials’ – wage increments every five years – will apply.
These quinquennials were already provided for in the previous collective agreement. However, the details have changed. In the previous agreement, the first two quinquennials gave 10% increases, the third and fourth 8%, the fifth 6% and the following ones 4%. Now, the first 10% quinquennial is to be split into four parts and will be paid annually from the second year of reaching the standard level onwards (3%, 3%, 2% and 2%). The second quinquennial will give an 8% increase, and will also be paid from the second year onwards, split into four increments of 2%. The third and fourth quinquennials are set at 8%, the fifth quinquennial is 4% and the following quinquennials give 1% rises.
From the third quinquennial onwards, the rises will be paid at five-year intervals, as in the previous collective agreement.
Normal collectively agreed working hours remain at 38 hours per week and are to be distributed over five continuous days where possible. Work on a sixth day will now be considered overtime, which will be subject to a 50% supplement. Work on Sundays, holidays and at night is subject to a supplement of 100%.
Social partners on both sides agreed that the main achievements of the new collective agreement were that, for the first time, important labour and social regulatory framework conditions have been established for a wider group of journalists. The Main Negotiator at VÖZ, Wolfgang Bergmann, said that costs would rise for employers in the beginning. But he said it was important for the employer organisation to establish fair and attractive working conditions for all, regardless of whether they worked online or for the print media.
Franz Bauer, Chair and Chief Negotiator with the GPA-djp, said he was happy that, after several years of effort, a wider group of employees – including freelance journalists – was covered by the collective agreement.
Bernadette Allinger, FORBA (Working Life Research Centre)