Leaders and experts of journalists’ unions and associations from over 20 countries, who met at the beginning of November in Tallinn, Estonia, condemned poor social standards in the media sector in Central and Eastern Europe. Now journalists’ unions are planning to challenge media companies, many of them foreign-owned, over what they perceive to be unacceptable “double standards” of wages and conditions applied at home and abroad, such as non payment for overtime, refusal to provide journalists with access to professional education, and sacking trade unionist activists and those who seek to organize European Works Councils. Participants of the “East Meets West: Social Dialogue in the Media Sector” Conference, organised by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), noted that “The process of EU enlargement is strengthening European democracy, but also carries some threats to fundamental rights, as set out in the new European constitution, including freedom of the press”.
