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Staff elections: The SNJ committed to defend AFP mission and newsroom

The 5 priorities of SNJ 2018-2021

1. Preserve AFP’s « status of freedom » and mission of general interest
2. Protect jobs, especially those of editorial staff
3. Improve working conditions and remuneration (including staff on local contracts)
4. Reinforce the quality of production, far from calls for « low cost »
5. Maintain a real expatriation policy, an asset for AFP and its editorial staff

You are invited to elect, for a three-year term (2018-2021), your representatives on the Social and Economic Committee (SCE), which merges the Works Council (EC), the employee delegates and the Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee (CHSCT).
The role of this new body – resulting from the Macron ordinances – is crucial: the CSE discusses the company’s general operations, its strategic orientation, measures affecting the workforce, but also occupational health issues. It is the place where your representatives can speak out and where all individual and collective demands are made. It is also the structure that, in concrete terms, provides social and cultural services (catering, childcare assistance, outings, etc.) to employees.

Elected representatives and delegates of the Syndicat National des Journalistes (SNJ), the leading organisation of the profession in France and at AFP, a founding member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), have been committed to these missions over the past four years.

The major company agreement, signed in March 2017 in a difficult economic climate and after lengthy negotiations, made it possible to preserve the rights of journalists, while introducing new measures: payment for being on called, quantified commitments on expatriation, provisions for freelancers, etc. The text concerns only employees under French law, but we have helped to ensure that it includes a charter of good practice for colleagues with local status, which we defend whenever we can.

It is this same pro-active spirit that will drive us for the next three years.We will focus our energy on defending AFP’s mission in the public interest – providing « accurate, impartial and trustworthy information » (Article 2 of the Staff Regulations) – while ensuring that the editorial staff have the means to fulfil this ambition.

The SNJ is convinced that significant additional resources, both human and technical, are needed to enable AFPTV to develop its offer. Too often, video positions open in a piecemeal fashion, and in unsatisfactory conditions (few available under French employment law, mainly local contracts, long-term freelancers…)

As for the text, it is the major missing element in Fabrice Fries’ strategy, while it remains the Agency’s first commercial pillar, on which many editorial innovations (fact-checking, datajournalism, etc.) are based.

Whatever the profession, language of work and status, the SNJ will fight to maintain employment levels, in particular editorial employment,without which the Agency will no longer be able to fulfill its mission to inform.

We will continue to be vigilant about the Agency’s worrying financial situation, owing to the mistakes made by the outgoing leadership.
Sell the Headquarters and move elsewhere? The perspective seems perilous to us:the stock market building is our only asset – apart from the staff – and its central position is not a luxury, it enables us to carry out our mission of running an international news agency 24 hours a day. Doesn’t AFP have other projects to carry out (editorial, technical, commercial) rather than engage in such an uncertain, potentially costly project? A major Board of Directors meeting is scheduled to be held in early October, before the elections. We will of course react to any announcements made on Aurore and our website snj-afp.org.

While staff have already put a lot of effort into this in recent years, the SNJ also intends to revisit the issue of salary increases.Since 2013, inflation has not been taken into account, therefore our purchasing power has been declining. The SNJ requests that the next mandatory annual negotiations (NAO) unblock this situation.

The SNJ is mobilizing on the subject of occupational health.In recent years, AFP has been overtaken by issues of stress, fatigue and other suffering that can lead to burnout. These questions were raised by the SNJ elected representatives. We will continue to relay them tomorrow and we will endeavour to be more present for those – all statutes combined – who work far from Headquarters, sometimes under difficult conditions. The Union will also be vigilant to avoid brutal management style at AFP.

Of course, the SNJ will continue to be involved in all the debates that make AFP, its independence and development. Alongside the Society of Journalists (SDJ), we are committed to ethical issues, which are at the heart of our concerns as an autonomous and pluralistic trade union, which has made great progress for the profession since its creation a century ago (1918).

Our negotiating strength, legitimacy and effectiveness depend on you.
Vote SNJ in the first round (there will only be one round if we obtain 50% of the votes cast) by 18 October!

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