Working Journalist Act under attack

Working Journalists' Beware:
The Act that protects you is under attack.

National Union of Journalists (India) Joins The Battle For Safeguarding Your Job Security.

Dear Colleague,

NEWSPAPER owners are training their guns at the Working Journalists Act and the institution of wage boards. In simple words they want these two to be scrapped. They want the journalists to be employed on contract, sacked at their will and pleasure and paid not the wages as fixed by the board from time to time but whatever it suits the employers.

Here is the proof :Two leading newspaper groups have attacked both the Working Journalists Act and the Wage Board through their newspapers.

Says the "Economic Times" in its editorial on March 4, 1996 : "The time has come to rethink the wage board for newspaper employees".

The Financial Express pontificates: "Government meddling in matters pertaining to the media has to be curtailed........this should include intermediation in fixing of wages and benefits, even though this will require repeal of the Working Journalists’ Act".

The newspaper employers have already set in motion their demolition plan.

They are challenging the law of the land by refusing to implement the wage board recommendations as notified by the Government. In some newspaper establishments, all new recruits are employed as contract workers, in many cases, even the fact that they are employed as journalists is not stated in their appointment letters. Existing employees are being pressurised to come under contract employment.

Contract employment envisages that you could be sacked at will. The Working Journalists’ Act secures your job against arbitrary action by the employers. It also secures several other benefits including limitation on working hours, proper leave and above all three months’ notice for termination of employment if retrenchment is being resorted to under certain conditions. The Act also decrees that no salary is paid which is below what is fixed by the Wage Board from time to time.

YOU ARE IN DANGER OF LOSING ALL

THESE ADVANTAGES. BEWARE.

The newspaper employers in India are working in tandem with international publisherswho also want to crush the journalists. Here is what is happening in Germany.

"In Germany the journalists’ unions are fighting to uphold the nation-wide collective bargaining system which guarantees some of Europe’s highest social standards.

Print employers have expressed their intention not to maintain agreements if they are "against their economic interests". The federations of newspaper and magazine companies demand paragraphs which make it possible for a single employer to introduce standards lower than those in the collective agreement - concerning salaries as well as working hours or pensions.

"This deregulation would make journalists dependent on the arbitrary power of company managements and is bad for independent journalism, says the International Federation of Journalists’ affiliate IG Medien."

"The employers’ federations in the press say journalists who have been in the profession for more than 11 years.....should get no pay rise at all. Magazine

companies want to cut rights on holiday pay, hiring and firing and copyright. Union demands for a new agreement concerning freelances were thrown out...."

(source: IFJ Directline).

So, that is where you are: Globalisation is going to be the employers’ argument for AXING your existing wages, existing benefits.

The National Union of Journalists (India) is fighting against these emerging trends. We have sent strong rejoinders to the skewed arguments in the Economic Times and Financial Express editorials. (These rejoinders are reproduced along with the editorials in the accompanying pages.)

We have raised the issue of contract system in the Press Council.

We had got it raised in Parliament earlier.

We are constantly attacking contract employment at every possible forum.

We are fighting for better emoluments and working conditions for you in the wage board that is currently at work.We are demanding further changes in the Working

Journalists' Act to strengthen the implementation of the Act with reference to the legislative intent of the Parliament which enacted it . A comprehensive amendment has already been submitted to the Government.

BUT WE CAN SUCCEED ONLY IF YOU ACTIVELY JOIN AND WORK FOR OUR ORGANISATION IN LARGER NUMBERS THAN EVER.

THE ONLY OTHER OPTION BEFORE YOU IS TO LOSE WHATEVER YOU HAVE GAINED OVER THE LAST SEVERAL DECADES.

(Asim Kumar Mitra)
Secretary-General
National Union of Journalists (India)