Freelance Expert Group IFJ
September 25-26, 2006
National report Croatia
In Croatia there are approximately 4000 journalists. One third of them are freelancers. They are organized in two organization –Croatian journalists Association which has 3500 members and Trade Union of Croatien journalists which has 3000 journalists.
Employers in Croatia consider freelancers those with who they sign or don't sign a contract for survice (contract of autorship). Depending on that contract, freelancers are payed or not payed. So-called freelancers don't have the same rights as employed journalists, meaning that they are not payed for overtime, work on hollidays, and they don't get vacation bonus etc. On the other hand, so-called freelancers have the same tasks as those who are employed. Freelancers are expected to sit in editorial staff from nine am til five pm, to be available 24 hours a day and also on weekends, to work as they are told. They are also expected to work on company's equipment. Freelancers ideas can be excepted or refused by the editor. They are also underpaied in comparison to their colleges who are employed in a media house. Freelancers are often not paid at all so they have to sue employers to give them their money.
The cost of labor isdefined by employer. Having a poor economy situation in Croatia, freelancers are exceptingemployers cost of labor and they are afraid to ask for more. Employers consider that freelancers who dare to ask for more money are to expensive so they get fired. Employers often aren't interested in quality of work or freedom of speech so we can say that journalisam in Croatia is becoming less appreciated and unprofessional. Therefore being a journalist is humiliating and freelancers are not free at all.
In 2001 the Trade Union of Croatien Journalists have asked labour inspection to disable employers by law to exploit journalists as free labour. TUCJ demanded from employers to give freelancers employmant contracts. These actions of labour inspections were partly successful because most of the colleges were employed. But employers wanted freelancers to pay the takses,pension and health insurance for themselves as independence entrepreneur.
What has changed in that sense? Employers have been released from paying the takses, pension and health insurance but that didn't change their relationship towards freelancers. Still, freelancers need to be in editorial staff from nine am til five pm, do what the editors want them to do using the company equipment, and for the price defined by employers. In that way they are anything but not free. In case they ask for better working conditions or bigger wage their demandes are refused. Their incomes are so low that they are not able to pay takses, pension and health insurance and have decent life in the same time.
Therefore, free journalisam in Croatia doesn't function, except in extraordinary situations. Situations like those are only few in Croatia. Others are compulsory freelancers, meaning that they work without proper employment contracts. Recently, a group of freelancers established a Free-lance Journalist's Association. That group consist of very competent freelancers who have powerful sources. Because of their influence they are very well paid and they don't mind paying takses, pension and health insurance in comparison to their other colleges who can't afford that. Free- lance Association had been established two months ago parallely with Croatian Journalists Association which has been existing since 1910 year. Croatian Journalists Association hasn't yet expressed its opinion concerning new Free-lance Association. However, there have been attempts to establish parallel journalists associations, but without results.
Concerning everything, the sistem in which journalist employs himself still isn't proper legally regulated so besides other problems, our colleges have legal problems. Those who try to work by rules of free journalism encounter all kinds of different problems in field, because they have problems in finding information. In Croatia the conception of freelancer is still undefined, so if you don't represent a certain media house you can't get the information easily. On the other hand, media houses are trying to force journalists to become “independent entrepreneur“ so that they don't have the obligation of paying takses for them. Most of theese “journalists enterpreneur“ don't earn enough money even to pay obligatory insurances (approximately 200 eurs).
Concerning the previously mentioned, almost every college, who is a freelancer in Croatia, aspirates to find a job in any of media houses, because he considers freelancing obligatory form of an uninformal work in which he loses almost everything and gains almost nothing. Beeing unable to pay takses to the state, most of them are coming out of that sistem of takses, and becoming unprotected again.
Recently I've participated on a seminar in Belgrade in which were gathered freelancers from all parts of former Yugoslavia and from Bulgaria, and I can say that the situation in those countries is even worse, except Slovenia whose situation is the same as in Croatia. However, those markets are too small for freelancers to succeed, because their number is increasing day by day. Therefore I belive that the freelancing in these geographical parts still isn't going to be the proffession in the way it is supposed to be. The real way out, I see in employing journalists, because the proper employment contracts are giving journalists some working rights and proffessional protection. Everything else creates chaos in journalism, decreases price of work and humiliates journalists who because of uncertainety of their employments can't have real proffessional freedom. So-called freelancers status is really a means of the employer to save money of prices of work and to free themselves of obligation towards journalists.
Zdravka Sever
TUCJ