Section Agence France-Presse du Syndicat national des journalistes |
SNJ-AFP |
Agence France-Presse Branch of the French National Journalists' Union (SNJ) |
News & Views
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Bonuses & Promotions: New Delay
For those of you who may naïvely have been expecting the annual round of bonuses and promotions to be announced today, March 1st - the agreed date ever since 1969 - don’t hold your breath. Last year, the process was purely and simply scrubbed. And now management has just told the unions that the 2004 round will only be announced some time in April. They have already warned us not to expect any miracles. But, you may ask, why the delay? The reason is simple: management has been too busy negotiating a proposed early departure plan as part of the cutbacks that it is funding by the sale of the headquarters building. This took up no less than five union-management meetings in January and early February. In other words our management considers it more urgent to offload as many as possible of our older colleagues than to ensure the motivation and continuity of staff as a whole. And that’s not the only bread-and-butter issue that has been put on the back burner. Last Tuesday’s union-management meeting was the first to be held for journalists since December 19. Whereas under French law, such meetings - set up to allow the unions to regularly present staff grievances - are supposed to be convened by management every month. Such is the current team’s sense of priorities. It goes without saying that when the 2004 round of bonus and promotion awards is finally announced, the SNJ will study it, along with all of the journalists who have made representations to us, with the closest possible attention. Will there be anything, for example, for the numerous journalists who spend years, in some cases well over a decade, stuck at the same category? Whereas union-management agreements provide for priority to be given to those who spend more than a given time at fourth category, and/or to older employees, who are under no obligation whatsoever to heed the siren calls of early retirement. And needless to say, whenever the 2004 round is announced, it must all be backdated to March 1st. SNJ-AFP 1 March 2004 |