Strike call to BFMTV and RMC against job cuts - France 24

Paris (AFP)

The huge savings plan at BFMTV and RMC is causing a stir: employees approved on Tuesday a call for a 24-hour strike on Wednesday on the antennas of the NextRadioTV group, against the job cuts planned by the Altice subsidiary, which threatens the broadcast of a final debate before the second round of municipal elections in Paris.

The media subsidiary of the Altice group (BFMTV, RMC, RMC Sport, BFM Business, RMC Découverte, RMC Story ...) had unveiled on June 17 a vast plan of savings and "recovery" to cope with the impact the Covid-19 crisis and increased competition (especially in sport).

It plans in this context to remove "330 to 380 CDI and up to 200 freelancers and intermittent", or about a third of the workforce, out of a total of 1,600 employees, according to the inter-union.

A plan that the unions had immediately denounced, deeming "this drastic cut incomprehensible" within a structurally profitable group. And they had called a general meeting Tuesday at the group's headquarters in Paris, which brought together many employees and approved the principle of a work stoppage.

"This strike action, voted overwhelmingly, will start tomorrow at 00:00 and will extend all day," said a member of the inter-union (CFDT, CGT, SNJ, FO, CFTC and UNSA), AFP, who prefers to remain anonymous.

This social movement threatens the broadcast on Wednesday evening of an important meeting before the second round of municipal elections. BFMTV and BFM Paris have in fact scheduled a debate from 8:45 p.m. between the three candidates for mayor of Paris qualified for the second round, Agnès Buzyn (LREM), Rachida Dati (LR) and the outgoing mayor Anne Hidalgo (PS).

This evening is supposed to be the last debate in the capital (after another organized last week on public service) before the second round, this Sunday.

- Shock treatment -

The mobilization of employees aims to defend three claims, according to the unionist joined by AFP: "no forced departures, refusal to halve the number of freelancers and intermittent and a real social policy of the group", especially in wages.

"For us, there is no reason economically to make a plan of this magnitude", while NextradioTV had made "77 million euros in profits" last year, he added .

The management of Altice had justified this shock treatment by the exceptional crisis that the media sector is going through, with the collapse of the advertising market caused by the recession, but also a very bad pass for sport on TV, between the competition stalled for several months and competition which will further intensify in August with the launch of Telefoot, the channel of the Sino-Spanish group Mediapro which will broadcast the best matches in Ligue 1.

In a message sent to employees on Monday and consulted by AFP, NextradioTV executives defended "the need for this inevitable transformation", particularly in the face of the crisis in the advertising market and competition from digital platforms. And while saying they understood "your concern, your doubts, and sometimes your anger", they called for "everyone's responsibility", and said they were open to dialogue.

For their part, in a press release published on Monday, the journalists' companies (SDJ) of BFMTV, RMC Info, BFM Paris, RMC Sport and the editorial staff of BFM Business, expressed their "serious concerns" regarding the "maintenance of the requirement and the editorial quality "of the group's branches.

© 2020 AFP