Huffington Post: behind the glamour lies sheer
labour exploitation
Huffington Post, in collaboration with an old
acquaintance of uninsured media workers, 24 Media, launches its Greek
website in a festive atmosphere: it seems that they consider it some
kind of serious upgrading for domestic journalism, if not a great
honor for all who will work under the glamorous name of the
international portal. But not all is always so rosy.
We wonder, is it true that the people who will work for
Huffington Post Greece sign contracts for a five-day workweek when in
fact the deal they have made off the record concerns a six-day
workweek with no extra pay? Of course, the
question in what way and how much the work of editorial
director Sophia Papaioannou or contributing editor Pavlos Tsimas will
be assessed, remains as of yet unanswered, but for the people working
in this new site, the
salary is going to be 700 euros at best. Also, it has not been
officially known if they are going to be paid what is provided by the
law (overtime, night shifts and weekends) and if they are going to be
insured as editors by journalists' insurance funds and not as office
clerks by IKA. It seems that the people working for 'the pioneering
news and entertainment platform that has been awarded a Pulitzer
prize', will be paid part of what is owed to them in glitz and
glamour.
Unless, of course, not all is so glamorous in
the modern offices of every newsroom around the world, where
keyboards catch fire in order to catch up with the frantic pace in
which a digital piece of news is consumed. In the, not so new
anymore, condition of internet news, where the digital social media
set the pace of intensified content production, info-workers in the
line of production copy and paste nonstop in relentless shifts so as
to get more 'clicks' and daily 'unique visits' which will give the
website a share of the advertisement pie. Working conditions in
domestic sites are not only exhausting and therefore do not allow any
kind of check by the editor, not only is the job poorly paid,
undeclared and uninsured, but, moreover, it is crucial for the way
truth is constructed. In the age of the delimited social media
internet, sharing and endless clicking are enough to render what is
nonexistent and undocumented, a true fact. Information as commodity,
the internet controlled and expensive, although seemingly free, the
new digital El Dorado that's being built on the backs of flexible
workers ('We believe that digital economy already is-and will be even
more so in the immediate future-one of the basic pylons of financial
development and business initiative in Greece. We wish to actively
support investments towards this direction and Huffington Post Greece
undoubtedly is a fine example of an innovative business spirit and
showcases in practice the extroversion that our country should have
in this new age'
') the disenfranchisement of their unions,compose the picture of the
media paradigm not just in Greece, which is being inducted in labour
Dark Ages -but also anywhere where internet news exists- according to
the motto 'choose the lesser of two evils'.
All of the above is not news to us, workers in
sites and portals. The vast majority of sites operate as modern time
galleys and the people that work for them as 21st
century slaves. The above words are not used metaphorically but
literally, since we are talking about mostly undeclared, uninsured
work in sites, 10hour and 12hour shifts, work during weekends and
holidays and extremely low wages. There are also those who are
constantly recycled (they make up the rule in sports sites), the
'volunteers' who 'are learning the job', doing their 'traineeship',
and ought to be happy if they grab something 'on the side' by some
boss, on occasion. These working conditions have been a reality for
the people working in electronic publications, even in pre-Memorandum
times. With the spread of the electronic media and the onslaught of
government austerity measures due to the economic crisis, the
situation has only got worse.
Turning the crisis into opportunity for them, means
anyone with enough nerve and callousness can start a site, a start-up
internet community and 'use the help' of workers who are badly paid
and exhausted by the long hours. The bosses take advantage of the
Memoranda legislation, the thousands of layoffs and the hundreds of
thousands of the newly unemployed to take advantage of us even more,
for less than the basics and with our heads down.
The sites of big corporate groups follow the same
path, something resulting in the creation of a labour force as cheap
and unprotected as possible, with no rights, no insurance, no
benefits, without even this formal quality of worker or unemployed- a
formless mass of individualized 'reserves' who will occasionally work
and occasionally won't, occasionally will survive and occasionally
won't, always according to the needs and standards of the bosses.
Against this background, Mass Media workers' unions,
if not altogether hostile towards the claims of the people that work
in sites, are unable to rise to the occasion and even attempt to
protect them from labour barbarism.
We, the 'invisible' internet workers, have the
chance for resistance and self-organizing. There are examples where,
thanks to the solidarity of colleagues, workers have claimed and
managed to obtain their labour rights. The court decision which
provides for workers in sites to be hired and paid as editors (see
http://katalipsiesiea.
blogspot.gr/2012/03/sites.html)
and for workers' insurance, and the collective power which has
emerged after protests as the result of common struggles, are but a
few indications that nothing is lost and that together we can win
everything.
We choose the way of collective self-organized
struggle, not only as a matter of dignity, but also as struggle for
our life and survival against the total war the bosses have declared
on us. We fight against the pervasive fatalism, obsequiousness and
careerist illusions. We, workers in sites, should re-establish our
claims and discuss our workers' interests and prospects against the
labour extermination we are experiencing. At the same time, let us
self-organize in horizontal structures with our colleagues in every
work place, but also throughout the media field and all of us,
workers and unemployed with our power as colleagues and our class
solidarity, let us fight together to
CONQUER ALL THAT WE DESERVE
Editors' wages, with full insurance rights
Five-day workweek with two days a week off and
extra pay for weekends, holidays and night shifts
Full syndicalist rights
Assembly of workers, unemployed
and students in the Mass Media
.JPG)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
Αναρτήσεις
