‘With these rates, journalists are forced to fly from topic to topic’

He had actually already “parked it”, the lawsuit. But when photographer Ruud Rogier (65) looked at the pieces again last week, his blood “started to boil again”. If you have been doing this work since 1981, then at a certain point you are ‘just Ruud with the camera’, he says. “When people see you without it, they say: where is your camera? And all of that suddenly fell, boom, away.”

Back to 2019. Because although Rogier is still involved in photography – he is now a director of copyright organizations such as Pictoright – he is definitively finished as a press photographer. That that was the consequence when DPG Media, publisher of, among others, de Volkskrant, the General Newspaper and various regional magazines, he knew more than three years ago. But he had not expected that there would be another appeal that will be filed this Thursday.

1 What was going on?

In 2018, press photographer Ruud Rogier and writing journalist Britt van Uem sued publishing house DPG, then still De Persgroep. Van Uem received 13 cents per word for her articles in TubantiaRogier 42 euros for a photo in the Brabants Dagblad† They thought it was too little to make ends meet. Because just think about it, Rogier explained at the time: editing, travel time, photography and editing took him an average of two hours, sometimes longer. According to him, a rate of 150 euros was therefore more in line with the collective labor agreement for newspaper journalists, taking into account that as an entrepreneur he took care of his own insurance, sick leave, vacation and pension.

But DPG did not want to negotiate about that. Rogier then opted to go to court, because “under these rates, journalists are forced to fly from topic to topic,” he now says. He still thinks it is unhealthy for the profession of a (photo) journalist, because “you have to be able to continue to do good work with regard to content”.

2 What did the judge rule?

The subdistrict court in Amsterdam did not consider the rates charged by Rogier and Van Uem on the basis of the Copyright Act ‘fair’, but also did not go along with the amounts demanded by them. According to the judge, Rogier should have received 65 euros per photo for thirteen submitted assignments, Van Uem 21 cents per word. The decisive factors were the limited negotiating space of freelance journalists – besides DPG there are only a few other large publishers on the market – and the rates they charge at other regional newspapers such as The Limburger (from NRCpublisher Mediahuis) could use.

3 Why did DPG appeal against that ruling?

Where the publisher owed Rogier and Van Uem only 300 euros per person after this ruling, claims from other freelancers could run up to an extra cost item of “more than 25 million euros per year”, says business director Bart Verkade. In addition, DPG did not agree with the explanation that the subdistrict court of the Copyright Act gave. “It’s a matter of principle,” he says. As far as DPG is concerned, writing or photographing for a regional newspaper with a very limited circulation requires a different fee than an assignment for a national newspaper. According to DPG, there is no single bar against which you can set all their freelancers. “In addition, Rogier and Van Uem accepted and carried out their assignments under this rate at the time. Then an additional assessment is not fair”, says Verkade.

4 What happened in the past three years?

DPG increased their rates for writing freelancers at the beginning of this year by percentages between 2 and 3.6 percent. The Media Federation, the umbrella organization of publishers, also met with the Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) in 2021, but those talks stalled. The publishers did not want to pay the rates with which the Dutch public broadcaster did agree, and the NVJ found that unacceptable. DPG and Mediahuis, the largest newspaper publishers in the Netherlands, announced in July 2021 that they would now apply a ‘work code’, in which the minimum rates for freelancers who are paid per hour were 22 to 39 euros gross.

If the ruling of the subdistrict court judge in the case of Rogier and Van Uem stands up to the appeal, this means, according to general secretary Thomas Bruning that the NVJ can “encourage more freelance journalists to also take a step to court, to avoid years of underpayment. correct.”

And Ruud Roger? In retrospect, he would “absolutely not do this again.” He stopped working, but his profession did not make much progress with that sacrifice. “You’re going to feel like a kind of pariah in your field, it’s certainly not the easiest way.” It is now up to the government to protect self-employed people without pension and insurance, he believes. And this lawsuit? “At the most he can point out how much that is still necessary.” The appeal is due this Thursday, a verdict will follow in a few weeks.