This story was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 1, Feb. 4-10, 2007

Surmounting Economic Woes Together
(Last of two parts)

Journalists agree that media workers need real unions that go beyond being lateral guilds – without discounting, however, the help that the latter can extend to media people.

BY KARL G. OMBION AND RYAN LACHICA
Bulatlat

BACOLOD CITY - Danilo Alcoriza, a columnist and a founding member of the Union of Journalists of the Philippines (UJP), explained that the deprivation of economic and democratic rights could lead to media opportunism. He said that because the working press is deprived of decent wages and benefits, the “alternatives” for many journalists would be to seek financial gain from other sources. It has gone to a point where journalists primarily rely on “outside” sources for their income, he said.

“The core of a person’s life is economics,” he said. “One may try to take away everything from you without you minding it but once your livelihood is threatened that would be another story.”

“That’s where media opportunism starts – economic constraints,” he also said.

Media opportunism comes in single or group transactions, most of the time it’s the latter that takes place, with fake “media organizations” using their names for money-making, he said.

Media groups as social clubs

He also said that press clubs and other media organizations here in the city act only as social clubs or semi-civic organizations that hardly address the need to uplift the economic condition and welfare of media practitioners and technical people alike.

Although these organizations tackle press freedom, political killings and other media issues they have never engaged in the issue about the dire economic status of the “working press” including the production people.

Miguel, not his real name, expressed a similar view. He said that some of the oldest media clubs here serve as public relation officers or mouthpieces of politicians and other influential people. He said that these groups are being sponsored by politicians for their own interests, such as protection and propaganda.

Other influential people also use these “media groups” as pawns against their business or political rivals, he said.

In the end, Alcoriza said, nobody could check the media but also themselves. He also said that progressive media groups could curb the bad practices of the “traditional” ones.

“Only the media and the media alone can correct dishonest members, not their establishments, employers, not even these social clubs they are in,” added Alcoriza.

Real unions, beyond lateral guilds

Big media institutions have unions to protect and advance the rights and welfare of their workers. However, their local counterparts don’t have unions, which make it hard for the working media here to negotiate and fight for their welfare.  

Alcoriza said that since it would be hard to have establishment unions then a lateral union that would cater to the media workers’ struggle might work for the moment.

However, he also said that unless it is a federation the government would not acknowledge it.

“Although a lateral union is not accepted by the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), it can help or support the cause of the working press,” said Alcoriza

“Still, what we need are real unions in every media institution, or where there exist employer-employee relationships,” said Tejida. Lateral guilds or unions are all right, but they have no collective bargaining power, unlike workplace unions, he said.

Still, Guillermo Tejida III, desk editor of Visayan Daily Star, stressed, lateral unions or guilds like the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) could take center stage in fighting for the common interest of media workers. He said that lateral unions could serve as an umbrella organization of unions within establishment for them to have a stronger and more cohesive voice.

“If a media member from a certain institution needs help then the lateral union could aid him in his fight with the establishment,” he said. Bulatlat