By: Peter Jančič (Spletni časopis)
“The system is becoming similar to the public broadcasting fee we all pay, but we watch POP TV.” This statement about how the healthcare system operates made me laugh in the article “Why I do not strike?” by the doctor Janez Koprivec this week. Because, on top of it all, it is true. Also, with the one from Diareja: “We are not on strike! We always work this fast.”
Among the strikes, which were impulsively encouraged by premature promises of happy endings to judges and prosecutors by Prime Minister Robert Golob last year, I did not write much about the doctors’ strike. Not because I was afraid of offending the government, which pays its most independent journalists and media to discredit doctors and other class enemies. I was not afraid of the potential issues that could arise if I criticised the Fides (the doctors’ trade union), as doctors are professionals and not unionists. But I simply do not know enough about healthcare. Koprivec, on the other hand, understands healthcare because he lives it and has presented the detours and mistakes of our country, which are not unique to healthcare. They exist in other systems too, including the media. On top of that, he wrote it humorously and kindly. The next day, it was yesterday, my enthusiasm was surprisingly shared by readers. The gods of readership are capricious, and it is not certain that what is worth reading is actually read. More often, attention is drawn to murders, sex, scandals, or an inflated headline with no substance. That is just how it is.
When it comes to strikes, I tried to provide readers with fair and comparable data so they can judge for themselves. That is why I published a series of articles on salaries at RTV Slovenia, in parliament, the government, the president’s office, and the judiciary. The salary relationships at RTV Slovenia reflect all the absurdities of our country. The highest salaries go to the editors of very small media outlets that almost no one watches, but the government provided them with additional tens of millions of euros before the new year because they are minorities. Moreover, the money was not for them; it was to cover the salaries of everyone, as the head of the new management, Zvezdan Martić, immediately admitted in the company. This time, the salary sums from RTV Slovenia were honestly (if not quickly) revealed. The problems arose two years ago when they temporarily muddled the exact amounts for a while, just like judges did in the last month. They included the seniority bonus, which significantly increases the salaries of older employees, claiming that this should not be known because it is personal.
Because the dispute over salaries at RTV Slovenia was not hidden, it was somewhat surprising that data with the same argumentation were not initially sent to me from the judiciary. The judiciary, like the doctors, went on strike, and they even threatened to disrupt the conduct of European elections if they did not get what Golob had thoughtlessly promised them last year with the Minister of Justice, Dominika Švarc Pipan. We have a system of salaries for public officials, and Golob’s bonus would disrupt the relationships without a substantial reason. Now, the Judicial Council, which decides on the promotions and employment of judges, is demanding even more: they expect the Constitutional Court to raise their salaries outside of parliament and amend the law and the state budget. Even though it cannot be explained why Miodrag Đorđević at the Supreme Court or Matej Accetto at the Constitutional Court would deserve a significantly higher salary than the President of the Republic Nataša Pirc Musar or Prime Minister Robert Golob. We can critically assess our politicians, but we elected them in free elections, they are representatives of this country, and there is no logic for the top of the judiciary to be worth more in terms of salaries. Especially when we know that, also due to the “reforms” by politicians, we have too many judges per thousand inhabitants, and due to the judges, themselves, the judiciary is entirely feminised, with some judges who should not be there. For example, former members of the secret political police. Not to mention judges who publicly participate in party rallies and then judge competitors. Similar issues can be found in “public” media, especially at RTV Slovenia.
Journalists are even worse than judges or healthcare workers. I remember protests when I was still working at Delo, where journalists, under the motto “We are all Karba”, protested against the management’s measures in the case of Dejan Karba. He, as a journalist, had signed an article with a huge headline on the cover: “Money from Patria did not end with Janez Janša but went to his party SDS.” It was a story in which Karba, with the help of former presidential candidate Jure Cekuta (who later went to prison for receiving almost half a million euros in bribes from Hans Wolfgang Riedl), claimed that the money from Riedl did not go to Janez Janša but to the SDS party. Constitutional judge Rok Čeferin, even though he is not close to SDS or Janša, later wrote about it: “The journalist, in his article, made (1) an offensive and (2) untrue accusation against a political party, and what is essential in this case, (3) he was aware that this accusation was not true.” Later, Karba was also involved in uncovering the illegitimate child of Cardinal Franc Rode, which turned out not to be the cardinal’s child. And journalists shouted, “We are all Karba”.
Time has shown that not everyone is Karba. Many were dismissed at Delo, but unlike Karba, they did not get well-paid jobs in the government, where SD arranges this for its journalists. Golob, on the other hand, pays his under the table. These concealed peculiarities in the media are also indicated by a video that attracted a lot of attention on social networks this week during the scandal of the overpriced purchase of a decaying building in Ljubljana for a new courthouse, about which judges do not want to hear anything. In the video, alongside Blaž Zgaga, known for the action of 571 activist journalists against Janša, politically employed “on trust” by SD Minister Dominika Švarc Pipan, there is also a television presenter and well-known “independent” journalist against the previous government, Saša Kranjc. At least that is how it seems. So far, RTV Slovenia has not protested that the video is a montage or explained anything about what their “rebel” against submitting to authority during the previous government is doing there.
I was intrigued by this video, which was published on the X network, because Mihael Šuštaršič, appointed by Golob’s government as the editor-in-chief when I was removed from Siol, immediately censored my column that had been published well before his arrival. In that column, I warned about the hidden conflict of interest of protesting TVS presenter Kranjc, as he was associated with Toni Tovornik, appointed by Asta Vrečko (Levica party) as the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Culture. To confirm that we are still “Karbas”, the Ethics Committee of the Journalists’ Association approved the withdrawal of the article without the author’s consent (nor did they inform me), saying that questioning Kranjc’s connection to Tovornik should not be done. Apparently, it is a private matter. Just like it was personal for Igor Bergant to lead discussions on March 8th with political activist Nika Kovač, and before the referendum, he became famous for participating in propaganda, which the law prohibits RTVS presenters from doing. March 8th was established by Simon Maljevac (Levica party).
All of this was also demonstrated by the purchase of a new courthouse with money from state reserves, which should not be used to buy real estate. The purchase was made by the Ministry of Justice, where the Deputy Minister is the former president of the Court of Audit, Igor Šoltes, who is also in the video with Zgaga and Kranjc, but on the far right.
Šoltes, like the Prime Minister and all the ministers, including Finance Minister Boštjan Klemenčič, saw nothing, heard nothing, and understood nothing.
But they all voted for it.
Diareja could be amended: “We are not on strike. This is how we always work.”