One third of journalists work without contracts

According to a recent survey of the Albanian Media Institute, a third of journalists and media employees currently do not have a work contract, while only 24% of the respondents said that they had had a contract during their career in the media. Asked whether they had been fired from their job, 32% said that it had happened, mainly due to media shutting down or the restructure of the newsroom, but in many cases they were also fired without any motivation.

The survey identified again long-standing problems with the media situation in Albania, such as problems with work contracts, their fictivity, the violation of labour rights, problems with salaries, etc.

The level of salaries and their irregular disbursement were other problems the journalists identified. 55% of the respondents said that the salary they received was lower than the average salary of the public sector and 59% said that there are delays in disbursement of the salary occasionally or even all the time, sometimes for several months in a row. 45% of respondents stated that there were fines applied wihtin the newsroom, for professional and disciplinary reasons, lowering even more the financial awards for journalists. Similarly, 67% of the respondents said that it was not a practive in their media to have bonus payments or payment for overtime work.

Respecting the labour conditions was also another problem, as 54% of respondents said that labour conditions are violated regularly or ocasionally by the employers. According to the survey, the daily work hours are violated for 68% of the respondents, while there are also violations for weekly and annual holidays, too.

58% of respondents said that the workload has increased compared to two years ago. In general 42% of respondents said that they thought the employment situation for journalists had not changed compared to two years ago, while for 32% of them the situation has further deteriorated.

The survey is part of a project the Albanian Media Institute is implementing with the International Federation of Journalists, with the support of the European Union.