Five layoffs at the Berner Zeitung
The Berner Zeitung (BZ) is cutting 3.4 full-time positions in editorial and production. At two titles in French-speaking Switzerland, the reduction in editorial staff was slightly reduced after tough negotiations.
Five BZ employees were given notice of termination, Tamedia spokesman Christoph Zimmer told news agency SDA on Friday evening. He thus confirmed a report by Persoenlich.com. Two of them would be offered early retirement. The staff was informed in the afternoon. Around 30 "smaller and larger individual measures" were announced, Zimmer explained. These included voluntary staff reductions, the renegotiation of agency contracts, the reduction of expenses or the "streamlining" of production processes.
Damage limited
According to Zimmer, the reason for the cost-cutting program is the declining advertising revenues in the entire newspaper industry. For this reason, Tamedia had already announced at the end of September that it would cut 31 jobs at two of its titles in French-speaking Switzerland. A total of 24 employees were to have been laid off. After three weeks of negotiations, an agreement was finally reached on Friday between Tamedia and the two editorial commissions. In the process, the editorial teams achieved that four fewer people would be laid off than originally planned. In addition, the negotiating partners agreed on a social plan for the employees who will have to leave the companies at the end of November. Tamedia has rejected a stop to the layoffs demanded by the editorial teams, according to a statement from the editorial teams.
The director of Tamedia Publications romandes, Serge Reymond, praised the social dialogue in a joint communiqué with the Imprint trade union. With the agreement, he said, the new concept could be implemented and those affected would be given the best chance for a fresh start.
Pressure on editorial offices grows
The unions and editorial representatives welcomed the agreement as "acceptable. But they continued to criticize the cost-cutting measures and the "disproportionate and unjustified number of layoffs." Since the media employees who were laid off would never be replaced, the pressure on the editorial offices would continue to grow. In addition, Tamedia as a group is "in the best of financial health", having made a record profit of 334 million francs last year, Syndicom said. That makes the newly announced layoffs at Berner Zeitung all the more scandalous, it said. "A media company that makes its publication policy solely dependent on advertising revenues instead of investing in journalism loses credibility with readers," Syndicom warns. (SDA/hae)
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