The status report on the implementation of the Majithia Wage Boards Award submitted by Government of Haryana says that there are 65 newspaper organisations in the state but only four of them namely; Amar Ujala, Sach Kahoon (Hindi, Punjabi), The Tribune and Dainik Tribune have implemented the recommendations of the Majithia Wage Award.
The report also says that Dainik Bhaskar has circumvented the implementation of the Award by taking recourse to Section 20J of the Majithia Wage Board Award. (It is really strange that the Labour officials have swallowed the logic of the newspaper Management and did not try to verify from the employees whether they are actually satisfied with the present wage structure, which is less than one third of the Wage Board recommendations or they have been coerced by the newspaper to accept the wages that are being given to them.)
In fact, section 20J cannot have overriding effect on the statutory Working Journalists Act, which says that a newspaper employee cannot be paid less than what the Wage Boards have recommended. The report has been filed by Shri C.R. Rana, the Labour Commissioner of Haryana. The Labour Commissioner has also stated that all seven Deputy Labour Commissioners, assigned to the task, have given their separate affidavits in this regard.
Parmanand Pandey
Secretary General
IFWJ
Madhavan
January 8, 2016 at 12:35 pm
Dear Parmanandji, Your words “It is really strange that the labour officials have swallowed the logic of the newspaper management”, are applicable to almost all the States. Even after seeing the proof of lesser pay, the Labour Inspectors submit a ‘satisfactory’ report duly vouched by the Labour Commissioner. I thought we could get some help from Delhi Government in this regard, but as days go by my trust on Arvindji has started diminishing.
Now workers’ only recourse is yourself, Umesh Sharmaji, Colin Gansalvesji, Thakurji, Paneji (DUJ) and a few others.
My feeling now is the Hon Supreme Court at least would have added few more words in the last paragraph of the judgment stating, change in the implementation does not mean changing the DA formula and percentage of other allowances, etc. Wages for November 2011 should be calculated as if there is no change in the implementation date.
The words ’till death’ were added to the sentence ‘to be hanged by the noose’ later on only.
History repeats itself in many ways.