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Before opening story for the newspaper "Eleftherotypia" and the open desire of the owner Ms Tegopoulou to sign collective labor contract with the trade unions we state once again that claims related to the strike are related to collective labor contracts,. Just a few days ago came out the news that some Greek newspapers such as "Eleftherotypia", "Elevtero Typs", " Proto theme" and "Real News" want to enter into negotiations with the Union of Journalists and sign a collective labor contract. But according to the words of Mr. Koumbiyas yesterday at the building of the Union turned up only Mrs. Tegopoulou - owner of the newspaper Eleftherotypia to sign the collective agreement.

Owners of the other media who wanted to sign labor contracts, so as not to participate in the strike of the journalists today and for their newspapers to be printed and distributed normally, have not turned up to negotiate, and today they released their papers as "Sunday issues". The desire of Mrs Lambraki to sign an employment contract has not found support from the Union of Journalists. At the meeting which was held in order for a decision to be made, there were two views - to sign the contract and not to sign it, but ultimately prevailed the second viewpoint with the excuse that if a contract with only one newspaper is signed it will be considered as a business contract, and the association of journalists is struggling exactly against the introduction of precisely this type of contracts, explained Mr. Koumbiyas.

It is believed that a collective labor contract for journalists, the Union of Journalists must sign with the Union of the owners, not with each owner separately. "We wanted to sign, whether it was called collective or corporate, but ultimately the opinion not to sign prevailed and the story ended there. Some others suggested, as we face this problem, to cancel the 48-hour strike, but this too failed to pass. This view had a minority with the idea to get out of the dead end street".

In the afternoon there will be a meeting of all the above mentioned unions of employees in the printed and electronic media to take the final decisions because to sign collective labor contracts for media owners all must agree - for example, not only the Union of Journalists, but also the Union of printers and distributors.

Will there be a way out?

The only way out is for the publisher to commit that they will not arrive at the signing of company agreements, as they are not mandatory, but they are an extreme solution, said Mr. Koumbiyas. Publishers have requested to negotiate, but not while the strike continues, so as not to negotiate under pressure. That is why after the strike of the journalists on Sunday (unless tonight they don’t reach a decision for early termination) on Monday they will sit at the negotiating table with the owners of media, but it is also possible not to reach a decision which will lead to new strikes, suggests Mr Koumbiyas.