By: Domen Mezeg
“Look at how the state-run STA news meagrely pays the contract staff. Five euros for ‘ordinary’ articles and 16 euros for an ‘exclusive’ article. What a shame on the media house! It is no wonder, then, that director Veselinovič does not want to forward these contracts to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia…” journalist Bojan Požar was critical in his article of how meagrely journalists are paid at the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), while their director Bojan Veselinovič earns 102,000 a year, which for comparison amounts to 13 full-time average pensions.
In his Twitter post, journalist Bojan Požar revealed why the director of the Slovenian Press Agency, Bojan Veselinovič, does not want to provide the government with appropriate documentation in order to allocate proportionate financial resources to the agency. It seems that Veselinovič is ashamed of how meagrely he pays his contract workers, who work their tails off: they receive 5.40 euros for ‘ordinary’ articles and 16.13 euros for ‘exclusive’ articles. He is also convinced that this is a disgrace for this media house and at the same time probably the reason why the director of STA does not want to forward these contracts to the government. The agency employs a hundred people, but it seems that the ‘forced labour’ is carried out by external contractors. Nothing like in a healthy comradely spirit.
And as is well known, for many years this kind of practice was also in force on the national television. Požar stated that RTV Slovenija produces a lot of broadcasts, has 2,300 employees, but nevertheless up to 90 % of broadcasts are produced by similarly meagrely paid contract or external collaborators. Ordinary proletarians work hard, and the first-class red bourgeoisie parasites on their shoulders. This is the case in the left-wing media, who are full of neoliberalism and exploitative capitalism. Where did this praised ‘equality’, to which the heirs of the revolution look so nostalgically, escaped to?