Employees of Bulgaria's Three Public Broadcasters to Protest on Thursday Demanding Decent Wages

The major Bulgarian trade union organisations, CITUB (KNSB) and Podkrepa, are calling for a minimum 15% salary increase for staff at the three public media institutions: Bulgarian National Television (BNT), Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), and the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA).

A protest has been scheduled for Thursday, May 15, under the slogan “Media Work Has Value”, with workers from all three public broadcasters expected to gather and block the intersection near Sofia University at 12:00 PM, demanding dignified pay.

The unions are requesting a total of BGN 14 million in additional funding from the state budget: BGN 6 million for BNT; BGN 5 million for BNR; BGN 3 million for BTA.

A letter requesting an urgent meeting has been sent to the Minister of Finance to discuss potential solutions.

Lyuboslav Kostov, economist at CITUB, emphasised the proportional scale of the demand:

“Out of BGN 96 billion in total budget expenditures, we’re asking for just 0.1%. For comparison, the average gross salary in Spain’s national TV, converted to BGN, is 5,658 BGN, and in Sweden’s public service broadcaster it’s 8,048 BGN. The same applies to public radio and news agencies.”

Mario Ninov from Podkrepa trade union added:

“This is a pay slip from a musician in BNR’s orchestra – gross salary for March: 1,613 BGN. Some employees at BNT and BTA earn even less. Now imagine trying to produce quality journalism under these conditions.”