Say no to earning less! Mobilize now!!

SUD calls on HQ-status staff to participate in the work stoppage planned for 2 :00 pm on Friday when management meets with trade unions to discuss wages. Your support is essential in getting management to agree to a permanent wage hike.

Inflation has considerably eroded our purchasing power over the years. We need a wage hike and not a one-shot bonus as management has proposed, whether it is €300 or €400.

But how much purchasing power have AFP HQ-status staff lost? According to our calculations, it is between 12 and 14% for the period from 2012 (when we received the last rise as being part of the national print media sector) to May this year when we received a general wage hike of 2%.

Here are a couple of examples of the impact.

Let’s first look at the case of “Dalila”, an entry-level press employee (coefficient 140). The inflation over the period is 20.5% but her monthly salary (without seniority bonus) has risen only 7.7%. Instead of earning €2,493 if her monthly gross wage had been indexed to inflation, she earns only €2,229. For her, it is a loss of purchasing power around €200 per month on a net basis (once social charges have been deducted but not income taxes).

Let’s also look at the case of Fabrice, a RED5 category journalist will 20 years of seniority (more than half of the newsroom is this level or higher). His wage (including seniority bonus) only rose by 5.5% percent. His loss of purchasing power is over €500 per month net. That’s more than the difference between the base salary of RED3 and RED5 currently (excluding seniority bonus and net of social charges)!

This loss is enormous and one can only conclude that AFP staff have suffered a massive collective demotion these past years.

This backsliding in our financial position is the result of AFP’s financing model adopted by the French state and implemented by management. Unless we put our foot down this trend will continue: AFP’s current financial plan, which runs through 2028, doesn’t have room for significant wage hikes.

We need wage hikes. It’s hard to carry out our public interest mission when we struggle to find day care. It’s difficult to provide rapid and comprehensive coverage when we can no longer find decent lodging within a quick commute. When staff run out of steam, AFP slows down too.

Paris, December 05, 2024
SUD-AFP (Solidarity-Unity-Democracy)