With this symbolic gesture, the union wanted to point to the cases of the violation of the rights of media workers and the need for the signing of a national collective agreement which media workers and their employers have been negotiating about for the past two years.
In a declaration which was read in almost all Croatian media today, the union said the signing of a collective agreement was necessary so as to protect journalists and media workers in local media, as well as journalists working in the media for years without a permanent contract and lacking basic social security.
"With this year's action, journalists and media workers in large national and small local media have raised the awareness of the need that increasingly threatened rights of all reporters be protected with a collective agreement. They also sent a message to employers and the public that without basic social and professional rights of journalists there can be no freedom of the media which is necessary for every democratic society," the declaration says.
So far, the SNH have signed eight collective agreements in large media houses which cover about 70 percent of journalists and media workers.