Albania

[AL] Lack of Social Security for Journalists

IRIS 2003-7:1/28

Hamdi Jupe

Albanian Media Monitoring Center

On 15 May 2003, the Standing Parliamentary Committee on Means of Public Information of the Albanian Parliament expressed its deep concern about the situation regarding the social security of the Albanian journalists and other media employees. Most of them are working illegally due to media owners not paying towards their social security, as stipulated in the Law No. 7703 of 11 May 1993 "On social insurance in the Republic of Albania".

In a letter of the Minister of Labor and Social Issues sent to the Parliamentary Committee on 30 April 2003, the Minister expressed her worries about this problem. According to the letter, private Albanian newspapers, radios and televisions are mostly declaring only a part of the numbers of journalists and other media employees to the State Institute for Social Insurance, which is responsible for this issue.

During 2002, the National Labor Inspectorate, the state authority responsible for veryifying and controlling the process regarding the contributions towards social insurance of the workers in Albania, has imposed penalties of EUR 2500 on private radio and televisions stations. To improve the incentive to pay, the Parliamentary Committee has asked the Keshilli Kombetar i Radiotelevizioneve (The National Council of Radio and Television) to pay attention to this problem during the process of licensing and re-licensing of the private radio and television in the future.


References

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  • Law No. 7703 of 11. May 1993 "On social insurance in the Republic of Albania"

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  • Letter of the Minister of the Labor and Social Issues sent to the Parliamentary Committee on 30 April 2003

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.