Nomer, like other technical crew in radio stations, is a regular employee entitled to benefits such as social service insurance, Philhealth and others but all those benefits are not complied with religiously by their company. Overtime pay has also been cut off, he said.

“But if we have a union the management would probably give us recognition since we have strength in numbers,” he said.

Management does not really see treat technicians on an equal footing with reporters, Nomer said.

“If the broadcasters or reporters would join forces with us then we can be a force to reckon with,” said Nomer.

Although production people are the backbone of the industry, they are also the least prioritized, he lamented.

Danilo Alcoriza, a columnist and a founding member of the Union of Journalists of the Philippines (UJP) in the province and of the progressive Correspondence, Broadcasters, Reporters Association-Action News Service (COBRA-ANS), underscored the constraints of organizing the local media.

“There are insurmountable odds in organizing media unions,” said Alcoriza, who is also Region VI chairman of Coalition for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage).

Alcoriza said that because many media practitioners – such as stringers and freelancers – have unstable jobs, they easily cave in to the pressures of management. “These working press people have no security of tenure and are mostly contract-based,” he said

Alcoriza further said that even within a media institution, there are gaps between the editorial people and the production people. This makes organizing a bit harder, he said.

He said that most reporters, broadcasters, news writers and editors alike rely on their outside influence, public relations work and other transactions related to their profession for additional income generation. Because they have other opportunities for income, they do not really care about alleviating the conditions of other colleagues in the media industry, particularly the production staff, he said.

“The creation of media groups or organizations usually doesn’t include technical people,” said Alcoriza. He also said that media groups do not cater to issues tackling the woes of technical crews, disregarding them as not part of the industry itself.

He said these practices tend to create a gap between the two components in the media industry – between the press and the production. (Bulatlat.com)

Surmounting Economic Woes Together
(Last of two parts)

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