Union statement

We publish, as required by art. 34 of the National Journalistic Labor Contract, a trade union statement from the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI, the main journalists’ union) relating to the negotiation for the renewal of the main national journalistic labor contract.

Journalism is a fundamental safeguard for the democratic life of our country, but the quality of information is deteriorating.

Publishers did not seize the revenue opportunities of the digital transformation of the sector and, faced with the crisis of traditional media, preferred to cut labor costs.

The reduction of editorial staff and journalists’ salaries through layoffs, repeated states of crisis with redundancy funds and thousands of early retirements, contractual paralysis have dried up the supply of news with negative repercussions on pluralism and the right of citizens to be informed.

For these reasons, journalists have proclaimed a national strike for 28 November to protest against the non-renewal of the Fnsi-Fieg national employment contract, which expired more than ten years ago.

They believe that for the development of information, a new agreement with publishers is necessary which takes into account the loss of purchasing power of salaries eroded by inflation, which encourages the entry of young people into editorial offices, which guarantees rights and adequate wages for the thousands of collaborators and correspondents – mostly precarious – who every day report on what is happening in our cities.

The new contract must not leave anyone behind, protecting acquired rights, contemplating new professional figures and dealing with artificial intelligence and fair compensation for the transfer of content on the web.

The strike, which will be preceded the day before, November 27, by a street demonstration in Rome, has no political motivations, but wants to reiterate that quality information is only possible with free professional journalists protected, like all workers in our country, in their rights and adequate wages by the renewal of the employment contract.

The press release from the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers.

In the last decade, publishers, despite the halving of revenues which has affected the printed press throughout the world, have significantly invested in companies to guarantee quality information and safeguard employment.

In this context, the employment contract of journalists is stuck in organizational models superseded by technological evolution: the economic and regulatory rigidity, as well as the onerousness and also the presence of paradoxical situations – such as the payment of former holidays repealed by a 1977 law – impose significant changes.

In recent years, however, the expensive system of percentage increases envisaged by the contract – now unique – has essentially guaranteed the purchasing power of journalists.

Despite the lack of willingness on the part of the unions to innovate the contractual rules in any way, the publishing companies have formulated an important economic offer.

The editors therefore consider the FNSI’s position to reject the proposal and call a strike to be unconstructive in a difficult context such as the current one and, appealing to the sense of responsibility of journalists, they trust in a more realistic discussion on the challenges affecting the publishing world and the journalistic profession today.