By The Trade Union of Media of Montenegro strongly condemns the anti-union discrimination, pressure, and manipulations to which the management of the public broadcaster has subjected colleagues from the Union of Employees of Radio-Television of Montenegro (RTCG), solely for their fight for a collective agreement and fair wages.
We express our full support for RTCG employees at a time when their employer is threatening to establish a new yellow union as a response to the resistance shown by the only representative union that refused to sign the collective agreement proposed by management.
A collective agreement must be the result of social dialogue and careful negotiation, not a unilateral decision by management—something the RTCG leadership clearly has yet to learn.
Pressuring individual union members to leave the union and blackmailing them because of their membership and their fight for legally protected rights is unacceptable and must not be met with silence.
The purpose of RTCG is to produce media content, and yet, according to the draft collective agreement that management deceitfully presented to the Council as a negotiated document, the first journalist who actually produces programming ranks an unbelievable 130th on the coefficient list. Needless to say, all directors—both necessary and newly invented ones—their assistants, and advisors are at the very top of the list, with proposed pay raises amounting to several coefficient points, while “ordinary” university-educated professionals who actually create content are offered an increase of only about 0.5.
When the manipulative tactics of management failed, just two days after receiving a draft document intended as a starting point for new collective bargaining, and a request from the Union to begin negotiations, they suddenly announced the formation of a new union—which miraculously became representative overnight. In reality, this is a phantom union allegedly set up to “protect” employees. The public was denied basic information, even though RTCG’s own portal was misused for that purpose through an unsigned article that said “everything” except when, who, where, and why this union was formed.
Unfortunately, it is now clear that the current management has learned nothing from its own past mistakes, including the events of 2023 that led to the first strike in RTCG’s history. We remind the public that the strike was also preceded by pressure and threats toward union members, but in the end, justice prevailed in favor of the employees.
Let us remind everyone that Radio and Television of Montenegro is a public service owned by the state of Montenegro and all its citizens. It is a budget-funded institution that will receive €20 million in public funds this year, and as such, it should serve as a model institution—both in terms of media freedom and workers’ rights—where respect for the law is a given.
We emphasize that the Constitution of Montenegro and the Labor Law guarantee freedom of union organization and activity and prohibit any form of discrimination on that basis, while the Criminal Code prescribes prison sentences for preventing or obstructing union organization and activity. In other words, we are not powerless—far from it.
