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
Media practitioners in a forum on
rights and welfare protection and advancement. |
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
The Negros Press: Keen
on Unionism, but Constrained
(First of
a two parts)
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