PCP warns of degradation of living and working conditions of the media

In a political statement in plenary, Paula Santos warned of the “worsening of living conditions” of professionals in the sector and referred to the “ongoing struggle processes of workers at SIC/Expresso, TVI, TSF, RTP, Lusa agency , between others”.

For Paula Santos, the “degradation of working conditions” of media professionals is “a reflection of the concentration of ownership” of the bodies and stated that this path “has had the complicity of successive Governments of PS, PSD and CDS”.

In the public sector, Paula Santos lamented the precariousness of RTP and referred to the strike called by workers at the Lusa agency, arguing that “with instability, precariousness, low wages, a shortage of workers and reduced newsrooms, there is no strong journalism”.

“Plurality and independence are called into question with the concentration of ownership of the media, a path that continues with Media Capital’s intention to acquire the Cofina Group”, he said.

PSD deputy João Prata recognized the difficulties of media professionals and recalled, “for example, that Lusa journalists have not achieved any salary increase in the last 12 years”. Referring that wages “are frozen”, the Social Democrat accused the Government of being oblivious to the problem.

Taking into account that the State “holds more than 50% of the share capital of Lusa and that the workers are threatening to strike soon”, the deputy questioned “whether the Government should not, under the public service contract, guarantee the necessary funds to accommodate more reasonably the claiming claims of professionals”.

For the PS, deputy Mara Lagriminha Coelho said that the parliamentary group follows “with concern the situation of the media and in particular that of the workers of the Lusa agency”, but shot the PSD: “We cannot ignore the disinvestment and cuts made above all in governance of the right and in the years of the ‘troika’ in Portugal and the recovery that the PS government started to make in 2015”, he said.

The deputy referred to the process of regularizing precarious workers at RTP and Lusa or “recently with a new public service contract that gives greater predictability and stability to Lusa’s management”.

“In this debate we have to look at these values, which in 2013 were reduced to 10 million, and it was already with the PS government that they have been progressively increased, and which stands, in this current contract, at 13.5 million euros. It is this progressive path that has to continue to be done,” he said.

For the PS, “in the scope of collective bargaining, a way must be found that meets, on the one hand, the rights of workers, but also naturally the economic stability of the company”.

In response, the communist Paula Santos blamed both the PS and the PSD and CDS governments for not having adopted “necessary measures to guarantee the appreciation of workers, wages and careers”.

The deputy of the Liberal Initiative Patrícia Gilvaz fired at the communist bench when saying that “only in dictatorships is journalism subject to political power”, accusing the PCP of wanting “this model of society”.

In the opinion of the IL deputy, “a journalist who is a State employee and who depends on the Government for his salary cannot carry out a scrutiny that is his mission in his duty as a journalist”.

“Only with strong companies, with a growing economy and with the end of the high tax burden that all Portuguese people have, will these problems be overcome, never with government subsidies that only allow the domestication of our journalists”, he advocated, ending with “a word of encouragement” for these professionals and saying that he is sure that “in what depends on them, they will never allow any power to instrumentalize them”.

BE’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Filipe Soares, lamented that there is “an employer class” that tries to subject journalists “to its dictates”. For BE, the role of the State in the press is to ensure that it defends a free press.

“This does not mean ruling the press, but defending the rights of those who work”, he observed.

For Chega, Jorge Galveias went back to the times of the PREC (Revolutionary Process in Progress) to remember the “persecution against freedom of expression and the purges of journalists in various media”, accusing the PCP of “never having apologized for these authentic attacks on democracy”.