The editorial staff of Eindhovens Dagblad (Eindhoven daily newspaper) will stop work on Thursday from 11:00 to 12:00. This is out of dissatisfaction with the salary offer from publisher DPG Media.
The ED journalists also stopped work at the beginning of October. At that time only for fifteen minutes. That action did not lead to a (significantly) better wage offer from the publishers. The offer now amounts to a wage increase of only a few per cent.
While inflation is much higher, which means that journalists will earn less. Moreover, DPG Media made a profit of around €167,000,000 in the Netherlands last year.
Unacceptable
The wage offer is therefore unacceptable, according to the journalists’ union NVJ (Nederlandse vereniging voor journalisten, Dutch association for journalists). “I expected that employers would have received a very clear signal from their employees in recent weeks more than ever, namely that they will not accept any loss of wages”, Wais Shirbaz, of the NVJ, says.
“They don’t want more than wage compensation. The high inflation of 2022 and 2023 has caused lasting damage due to loss of purchasing power. The 15 per cent we ask for on behalf of journalists are based on hard figures from CBS (central bureau for statistics), CPI (consumer price index) and the Europese Centrale Bank (European central bank)”.
Other media
In addition to the Eindhovens Dagblad, other media are also stopping work, including Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad. The provision of information on the ED website will continue, unlike, for example, de Volkskrant, where the website will not be updated during the work interruption.
DPG Media could not be reached for comment.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
