Tamedia staff protest planned redundancies

More than 400 people gathered outside Tamedia’s main building in Zurich to oppose planned job cuts at the Swiss publishing group. Tamedia employees joined other media professionals and readers at the rally, organised by the company’s editorial teams.

The protesters called for management to stop the redundancies immediately. Their demands reach beyond the newsroom in Zurich: staff in Tamedia’s French-speaking Swiss editorial offices expressed solidarity, and some travelled to the rally.

The planned reductions affect news teams in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. Employees say they want management to consult staff in both regions, consider voluntary departures and invest in journalism produced by people. The rally brought together workers and readers around those demands, making the dispute visible outside the publishing house itself.

Tamedia plans to cut 34 full-time posts, with 41 staff members set to lose their jobs. The reductions affect news editorial teams in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland.

The distinction between posts and people is central to the figures announced by the publisher: the number of employees affected exceeds the number of full-time positions being removed. Staff have responded by asking management to open a consultation process in both language regions and take voluntary redundancies into account.

The proposed cuts were announced earlier in October. The announcement has prompted opposition from Tamedia’s editorial teams, who organised the Zurich rally. Employees there called for an immediate halt to the redundancies and urged the company to invest in human-driven journalism. The dispute now spans staff in both parts of the country, with French-speaking colleagues publicly backing those who assembled in Zurich.

Tamedia staff accuse management of shifting responsibility for the company’s business decisions onto employees. At the Zurich rally, editorial teams criticised what they described as the consequences of poor decisions and failed strategies being borne by newsroom staff.

Their proposed response is a consultation process covering German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. Employees want voluntary redundancies considered as part of that process, alongside an immediate halt to the planned job losses. Staff from Tamedia’s French-speaking editorial offices showed their support, with some joining colleagues in Zurich.

The demands frame the conflict as both a workplace dispute and a debate over how the publisher responds to its business difficulties. Staff are asking management to involve employees in the process and to protect journalism created by professional reporters. The rally gave those calls a public platform in front of Tamedia’s headquarters.

Zurich’s mayor backed the protesters, saying he still reads the newspapers every morning. The mayor, who previously worked as a journalist, also spoke in favour of reading articles produced by local media professionals rather than material generated by AI agents.

That support echoed one of the rally’s main calls: Tamedia should invest in human-driven journalism. The protesters included readers as well as media workers, linking the job dispute to the future of the newspapers they read. The company’s editorial teams want management to halt the redundancies while it consults staff across the German-speaking and French-speaking regions.

For Tamedia employees, the next step they are seeking is a formal consultation that takes voluntary departures into account. Their call for human-led reporting remains part of the same appeal to management as the demand to reconsider the cuts.