Some of the unreliable people at Global Media have left journalism, and there are those who refuse to work without pay.

Some of the 130 journalists with green cards from Global Media Group (GMG) have stopped working for them, while others have already changed their profession, participants in a picket held in Porto told Lusa on Wednesday.

Journalists and GMG employees gathered in Porto this Wednesday to denounce the situation of independent workers from the group, accusing them of almost two months of non-payment of wages and of failing to communicate.

According to the Union of Journalists (SJ), the deal to buy the publications from Global Media Group (GMG) by Notícias Ilimitada is being presented by the group’s management as a solution to the serious problem of non-payment of “green receipts” to workers and the regularization of Christmas benefits.

In an interview with Lusa, union representative Augusto Correia explained that “if the deal is delayed until July 15 and Global continues to not pay salaries, they will have accumulated two months of unpaid wages. At that point, the April salary is at stake, from July 10 to May.”

“There are employees who wanted to be here but couldn’t because they didn’t have money for gas or transportation,” the union leader began by describing, adding that “there are people who sell their clothes to second-hand stores so they can continue to live.”

Asked how many workers had green cards, Augusto Correia estimated that there were “between 100 and 120,” noting that given the layoff data verified by Diário de Notícias, TSF and Jornal de Notícias (JN), the total number had decreased.

Ana Magalhães, a representative of the workers at the sports newspaper O Jogo, said that “there are already people looking for work,” since “many of these people receive the bulk of their family income from this collaboration, people with children, with commitments, subject to great emotional exhaustion.”

Stressing that they are workers “absolutely essential for the Game to cover the entire territory and islands”, he pointed out that, geographically, they are people from Chaves to Faro, as well as the Azores and Madeira archipelagos.

“There are those who have already decided not to work until they are paid,” the journalist added.

On behalf of JN, Rita Salcedas assured that the non-payment of salaries is causing serious damage to the daily management of the newspaper, “because most of the ‘green’ GMG workers work for JN.”

“Some of them stopped working as soon as the second wave of salary arrears began, and in this already short essay these restrictions make everyday life difficult,” continued the representative of the workers, for whom “GMG not only does not pay, but does not formally communicate, does not guarantee anything.”

Regarding the shock of the employees, Rita Salcedas said that some “remained in their profession, but outside the group, while others changed professions.”

JN correspondent in the Leiria and Santarém areas, Alexandra Barata, has been a green bill payer since February 2018 and told Lusa that she is outraged by the delay in paying salaries, as well as the fact that the administration “does not respond to established contacts.”

“It’s a profound lack of respect, it seems like we are nothing to them,” he said, before expressing hope that “after the act is signed” the administration “will start treating them with the dignity that is due to them.”

Karina Fonseca, a journalist for Evasões magazine, admitted to Lusa that she was experiencing “a lot of emotional stress” because “it’s impossible not to think constantly” about the lack of money she has.

“We feel a bit abandoned in this whole process because, apart from not being paid, no one gives us a word,” the specialist reiterated to JN magazine.

Unable to hide her emotions about being forced to consider leaving a profession she “loves”, Karina Fonseca admitted: “Yes, it does cross my mind to give up, insecurity does that.”