The Talents Association of GMA Network (TAG) strongly denounces the misleading statement of GMA Network Inc. claiming financial aid to its workers amid the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon, when in truth it will be implementing a no-work-no-pay scheme for the staff out work.
- Screenshot of the PEP article saying GMA employees will get full salaries. PEP is a joint venture of Summit Media and GMA New Media, a subsidiary of GMA Network.
On March 19, GMA Network released a statement on its website with the title “GMA gives aid to employees during enhanced community quarantine,” saying “all its employees will be getting their full salaries as well as the cash equivalent of their rice benefits. These are on top of the year-round medicine allowance and health card benefits accorded to all regular employees and their eligible dependents.”
But that only affects the company’s regular employees.
For the talents, it said this: “Talents and project employees will still be able to receive their salaries on March 25 and 30, respectively. In addition, a cash advance will be made available for them for their April 10 and 15 pay-outs.”
(READ: [News] Sidebar: Talent? | How can you be considered a regular employee)
Talents will be able to receive their salaries by end of March because they have already rendered their work for that cutoff, or March 1-15. GMA News TV went off air March 19.
Because they will not be rendering work from March 19 to April 12, or the end of the lockdown, the talents will be getting a “cash advance,” which is a fancy word for loan, or utang.
Talents were only informed of the detail of this scheme upon demand. Personnel were initially at the dark of what was gonna happen, relying only on the misleading statement of the network.
Because of a lockdown of entire Luzon to contain coronavirus, mass transportation was suspended, and everybody is ordered to be on strict home quarantine except for essential work including media.
Many media organizations, including the biggest television networks, have had to downscale.
GMA News TV was forced to go off air, simulcasting only GMA shows on the news channel, and suspending work for the personnel behind Balitanghali, Quick Response Team, News TV Live, Stand for Truth and State of the Nation With Jessica Soho.
The downscale means personnel behind these shows are out of work for at least a month, many of them talents and project employees.
TAG expresses its strong disappointment at this lousy treatment of the network’s talents, our colleagues, the network’s biggest assets.
They are production assistants, video researchers, production researchers, writers, producers and other important members of the media workforce who have been declared by jurisprudence to be necessary and desirable in the company.
And yet, these are the very same people with no hazard pay nor allowance during these times. The Project Employment Contract (PEC) scheme, the network’s response to TAG’s lawsuit, afforded the talents health cards, but which do not cover their dependents.
(READ: [News] New contract, same ‘exploitative’ terms)
In the time of coronavirus, all members of the household must be protected.
Our colleagues, among the best, among the most hardworking in the industry, DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS.
- Many workers in GMA’s News and Public Affairs Department are talents and project employees who do not have health card benefits yet still go to work to report the news.
It is under these circumstances that TAG is calling on the public to speak out against GMA Network’s unfair labor practices.
Now more than ever, in this critical time of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to protect our frontliners, including those who work in the media and make sure that the Filipino people are informed.
(READ: [News] Salaries of terminated talents held)
TAG also calls on the Department of Labor and Employment to investigate these concerns.
As we all struggle to live through this pandemic, let us pray, keep ourselves safe and also support our frontliners.
#BuhayMedia #LabanMedia #EndContractualization #NoToContractualization
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