Trade unions
Russian journalists do not have powerful trade union associations although some attempts to establish such associations have been made in the last decade. Two organisations were set up in Moscow. Trud i Tvorchestvo (Labor and Creativity) was founded in 2009 and claimed to have about 5,000 members; another independent journalists trade union was established in 2016 with the support of 30 journalists. Anyway, there is not much information about their present activities as well as about such attempts in the regional markets.
The lack of professional unity among journalists working for competitive media companies and the continued strong positions of the Russian Union of Journalists in regional media, partly explain why journalists’ consolidation efforts to protect social and economic rights of newsroom employees still have been so rare in Russian media. On the contrary, professional associations of employers representing different segments of media business have been developing since the 1990s. Among them one could mention Natsionalinaya Associatsija Veshatelei (National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters – NAT, unites 600 companies) established in 1995, Gildiya izdatelei periodicheskoi pechati (Guild of the Press Publishers – GIPP, unites 370 companies, est 1995), Assotsiatsiya kabelnogo televideniya Rossii (Cable Television Association of Russia – AKTR, about 80 companies (est 1998), Aliyans nezavisimykh regionalnykh izdatelei (The Alliance of Independent Regional Publishers – ANRI, unites 70 regional publishing houses (est 2006) and others which bring together press distributors, representatives of advertising and public relations. These associations aim to protect business principles and to develop media business, to analyse tendencies in Russian and global media business, to elaborate and protect industrial standards, provide analytical data and training to their membership, and try to lobby with the Russian federal government and to advance the interests of their members. However, support for journalists employed by media companies is not the main focus of these associations.