Radio and television broadcasts were suspended for 24 hours today, except for hourly newscasts, as employes of the Broadcast Authority staged a protest strike over wages. It was the second broadcast blackout in less than two months and the issue was the same–the government’s refusal to go along with a wage agreement reached earlier between the newspaper publishers and the journalists’ union.
The Broadcast Authority is a public agency controlled by the State and its employes are civil servants. The privately employed journalists won a temporary 25 percent wage increase, spread over three months, pending conclusion of a final wage agreement. But the government has refused to grant the same increase to the broadcast journalists for fear that it would create a precedent for similar wage demands by other government employes.
Prof. Reuven Yaron, chairman of the Broadcast Authority, charged today that the government’s position prejudiced the Authority’s freedom of action with its own employes. Yitzhak Livni, Director General of the Broadcast Authority, added that the government’s refusal to grant broadcast journalists the same treatment as print journalists would endanger the independence of the Broadcast Authority. (By David Landau)
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