The Arab Trade Union Confederation (ATUC) conducted a preliminary survey to shed light on the sectors facing the risk of extinction in the near future and its implications on its workers.
Printed press sector topped the list of sectors that were brought up, where mass layoffs of journalists and workers in this sector were recorded as a result of economic difficulties and the beginning of readers’ preference of electronic journalism outlets instead of printed ones.
In Tunisia, the National Syndicate of Journalists (SNJT by its French acronym) recorded the expulsion of 190 journalists during the month of March due to the Corona pandemic, and Egypt witnessed a mass layoff of workers in a number of paper newspapers, the most important of which were "veto", "New Day", "Voice of Al-Azhar" and "Housing Egypt".
The Arab region was no exception. The British “Press Gazette” recorded the dismissal of 2000 workers in the printed press sector in Britain, and in Indonesia, the Legal Aid Institute for Journalism announced that it had about 30 calls a week to report the process of layoffs or violations of the rights of workers in the printed press sector.
The International News Media Association (INMA) attributed the printed journalism crisis to the “hasty decision” to classify printed paper newspapers as a possible carrier of Corona virus infection and considered that this decision represented a bullet for a sector that has been already in a crisis for twenty years.
It is noteworthy that the INMA, in an attempt to refute the decision, issued a study that considers that newspapers do not carry the virus for a long time and that the process of producing a newspaper does not exceed the role of one man in shipping and distribution.
#ATUC #ITUC #CSA #PrintedPress #Journalism #Crisis #Coronavirus #COVID19 #SNJT #INMA #Study
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