- Industry publication reports that 200 contractors at Jixi News Media Group have not received any wages for months
- Some may have to take their grievances to the local government, employee says
Journalists at a regional media conglomerate in northeast China have not been paid for several months as the firm experiences financial difficulties in the face of competition from digital media, it has been reported.
About 200 contractors, including editorial staff, at Jixi News Media Group in Jixi, Heilongjiang province, have not received any of their wages this year, Chinese media industry outlet Media Daily reported on Tuesday.
The group owns six local newspapers and broadcasters including Jixi Daily, Jixi People's Radio Station and Jixi Television Station, as well as a newspaper publisher and some smaller media companies, with about 490 employees in total.
Around half of the employees are considered non-contract staff, which means their salaries are subsidised by the government because their employers, including Jixi Daily, are technically state propaganda outlets.
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"These people are not affected (by the unpaid wages)," a non-contract staff member surnamed Li told the South China Morning Post. "But many people in peripheral operations like advertising and new media operations are contract staff and not under the government payroll. I know many of them had not been getting their pay for about a year."
Many contract workers, including journalists, were thinking of taking their grievances to the Jixi municipal government, Li said.
"They really want the government to hear their voices," he said, adding that many contractors had begun to spend much less time in the office and were pursuing side jobs to earn money.
Jixi News Media Group offered voluntary redundancy to all of its contracted staff in an internal notice issued on Wednesday.
"If all group employees wish to terminate the labour contract, the city will reimburse various arrears in a lump sum and provide financial compensation in line with the Labour Contract Law," the notice said, referring to the law introduced in 2008 to apply standard employment rights similar to those in existence internationally.
"If staff fail to register before the deadline (of 1.30pm on Wednesday), they will be deemed to have waived their rights automatically."
Li confirmed that staff were offered this redundancy package, but said he was unsure how many contract staff accepted.
Employees have said that the group, like many traditional print media organisations around the world, has been struggling financially since the rise of new media and the sharp decline of advertising revenues and demand for print.
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"Now editors, journalists and staff are basically working at their own expense," one journalist told Media Daily, saying that the rise of new media had contributed heavily to the group's financial woes. "For example, expenses such as business trips, interviews and transport fares are not reimbursed and are paid for out of their own pockets."
Yi Chunlei, deputy general manager of the group, was quoted as saying that he "had heard there were wages being owed" and "it is possible that they are restructuring".
Chief editor Lu Xuemin was quoted by Media Daily as saying that wages had not been paid for the past 11 months, declining to elaborate on the reason.
"There is a timetable and progress is being made, but it has not always kept to the timetable," Lu was quoted as saying. "Hopefully it should be solved quickly."
However, employees said that no specific timetable for the changes had been put in place.
"We have been talking about this throughout, but there has never been a detailed solution," one member of staff was quoted as saying. "No one knows what to do. The city (government) has said that it will sort it out, but we don't know when this will happen."
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Jixi News Media Group has been contacted for comment.
Declining advertising revenues, falling newspaper circulation and the rise of digital media have led to drastic cuts at print media organisations in China, with many struggling to survive.
The total print volume of Chinese newspapers dropped for six consecutive years after 2012, according to a 2018 survey by the China Newspaper Association.
About 75 per cent of Chinese people obtain their daily news from WeChat groups, while less than 1 per cent do so from print newspapers, according to a report in September from Renmin University.
Jixi News Media Group is far from the only media company facing financial difficulties. In June last year, staff at two media organisations in Heilongjiang " Qiqihar Broadcast Television Station and the Daqing Daily newspaper " protested with banners outside their offices over unpaid wages.
"There have been similar protests by newspaper and television station journalists in the last few years at the Yanzhou Metropolis Daily in Shijiazhuang, the报Strait Metropolis Daily in Fuzhou, and Gansu Daily in Lanzhou," Geoffrey Crothall, director of communications at China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based labour rights NGO.
There has also been a string of closures of struggling local newspapers, including Western Economic Daily in Gansu province, which shut down last year after not paying salaries for four months.
"It is possible that the journalists at many traditional media outlets that have closed down got paid what they were owed before being made redundant, or managed to resolve any disputes over pay through other channels," said Crothall.
"But clearly, if you have not been paid for a year or more, staging a collective protest is probably the only option you have left."
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