Zehnder introduces working time recording
Zehnder Mediengruppe, headquartered in Wil SG, wants to introduce working time recording for all journalists. The company is responding to a complaint by the Syndicom union and the journalists' association Impressum.
Zehnder Group publishes a total of 23 free weekly newspapers in 17 regions of German-speaking Switzerland, mainly in eastern Switzerland. On Monday, Syndicom and impressum had asked the labor inspectorates to clarify whether the recording of working hours at Zehnder Medien meets the minimum legal requirements. In a statement on Tuesday, Zehnder now announced that it would introduce its own standardized time recording system in all offices. This would make Zehnder Medien one of the first well-known publishing houses in Switzerland to record working hours.
Astonished about display
In the Swiss publishing industry, "it was and still is customary not to record the working hours of journalists," Zehnder writes. The fact that Syndicom and impressum have now chosen Zehnder Medien as the next company for their campaign, after the "big three" Tamedia, Ringier and NZZ, is surprising in two respects. First, Zehnder already records the working hours of some journalists, and second, Syndicom and impressum have never contacted Zehnder Medien about recording working hours. Zehnder writes that they would have been happy to show how far they had come in recording working hours and what experiences they had made. Now there is probably no hope for a collective industry solution. Zehnder Medien will therefore in any case introduce its own uniform system for recording working hours in all its offices.
Action "Now it hits 13
The advertisements were part of the series of actions "Jetzt schlägts 13" by Syndicom and Impressum. Since the beginning of the year, the media companies Tamedia, Ringier and NZZ had already been reported to the police for failing to record working hours and for suspected disregard of journalists' health protection (Werbewoche.ch reported). According to the associations, they tried several times to find collective solutions with the industry. For ten years, there has been no collective labor agreement in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino, they wrote. That is why journalists need the full protection of the labor law. This prescribes the recording of working hours. (SDA)
