ये रवींद्र धारीवाल तो मालिकों का बहुत बड़ा दलाल निकला

रविन्‍द्र धारीवाल ने अपनी कंपनी के कर्ताधर्ताओं के कहने से यह लिखा है तो यह मान लेना चाहिए कि वे अपनी अक्‍ल घर पर रखकर आते हैं। सरकार को न्‍यूनतम वेतन तय करने का पूरा पूरा अधिकार है और यह अधिकार क्षेत्र सरकारी उपक्रमों तक ही नहीं है बल्कि निजी क्षेत्र में भी सरकार हस्‍तक्षेप कर सकती है। सरकार ने वेतन बोर्ड मीडिया का मुंह बंद करने की कवायद के तहत गठित नहीं किए। धारीवाल जी गलत सोच रहे हैं। असल में अनेक अखबार अपने कर्मचारियों को दैनिक मजदूरों से कम वेतन देते थे। वेतन के अलावा पीएफ, ग्रेच्‍युटी, मेडिकल सुविधाएं, बीमा आदि तो दूर की बात थी। मीडिया कर्मियों से चर्चा के दौरान यह बात सरकार के कानों तक भी पहुंचती थी कि अखबार वाले सही वेतन नहीं देते लेकिन नौकरी के मारे क्‍या करें, चुप रहते। अखबार के मालिक जो तय कर देते वह वेतन हो जाता और वही काम। लेकिन वेतन बोर्ड के आने से पत्रकारों एवं गैर पत्रकारों को लाभ जरुर हुआ है इससे इनकार नहीं किया जा सकता। हालांकि, आज भी लाभ उचित नहीं मिल रहा लेकिन दशा बदली है इससे इनकार भी नहीं किया जा सकता।

हालांकि, सरकार ने अखबार वालों के लिए वेतन बोर्ड गठित किए और इनमें इलेक्‍ट्रॉनिक मीडिया और वेब मीडिया को शामिल किया जाना चाहिए। पत्रकारों को इसके लिए मांग उठानी चाहिए। बड़े महानगरों को छोड़ दें तो छोटे शहरों में आज भी पत्रकारों एवं गैर पत्रकारों को सही वेतन नहीं मिलता एवं शोषण भी खूब होता है। कई अखबारों में ऐसी ऐसी ग्रेड बनी हुई है जो सरकार भी नहीं बना सकती एवं इस ग्रेड के चक्‍कर में जमकर शोषण जारी है। वेतन बोर्ड और बढ़ी प्रतिस्‍पर्धा ने स्थिति को थोड़ा सुधारा है यह तय है लेकिन सरकार को भी चाहिए कि वेतन बोर्ड जल्‍दी जल्‍दी गठित कर उसकी सिफारिशों को तेजी से लागू करवानी चाहिए। हर संस्‍थान की सच्‍चाई का पता लगाने के लिए उनकी पूरी आडिट होनी चाहिए और जिन संस्‍थानों में वेतन एवं अन्‍य सुविधाएं नहीं मिल रही हो उनके मालिकों की नकेल कसी जानी चाहिए।

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=Q0FQLzIwMTEvMDYvMDIjQXIwMjAwMA==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

————————————————————————————————————————–
Here Goes
TOI Newspaper Employees Union Patna Response to BCCL CEO Dhariwal’s
Edit Page Article “Muzzling The Media”
————————————————————————————————————————–
It was indeed a great event in the history of journalism to find the
CEO of Bennett, Coleman & Co –no less—to take up the cudgel on behalf
of journalists while finding Statutory Wage Board as a throwback to”
license-permit raj” era tool to “manipulate” the newspaper business
“fettering the freedom granted to media by Constitution”.

But the debatable point is are the journalist complaining. Going by
the trend witnessed not in distant past, journalists have no reason to
claim that their Right To Information and Report has ever been
target of attack by government and in fact the latter had been hapless
target of media. As regards government control on the salary of
mediamen is limited to receiving the recommendation and accepting or
moderating the recommendation of an ex-Supreme or High Court judge.
Here journalists can definitely complain against internal censorship
or paid news phenomenon.

But, Mr Dhariwal, writing on wall is that Wage Boards can not be
wished away : they have existed since 1966 or 1968 and will be
constituted unless and until Working Journalists Act is held to be
ultra vires. Even if government does not wish as per the whimsical and
ill-advised declaration of Mr Ravindra Verma, it can be forced
through PIL or writ. It is not legally simple and so are the
Recommendations of all Wage Board. The only thing that is required is
“steely resolve” on the part of workers or union thereof. Not a single
word of Wage Board Recommendations can be wished away and sooner or
later every single rupee not given can be recouped with lot of
penalty. Any day it can be invoked against any erring management.

When management of a newspaper establishment refers to Constitutiom
and crying wolf on Freedom of Press and whining over imaginary
un-viability of Press, one gets a dirty feeling that it is soon going
to court against some order of the government, like for example the
Majithia Wage Board Recommendations. Even for argument sake it is
admitted that it has suggested 80% wage increase, would you in the
name of fair play compare the hike that your own organizations gave to
its contractual workers. Then you did not complain against
un-viability of Press because of “high entry level wages of workmen”.

Should we read, Mr Dhariwal, workmen as Wage Board employees only
whereas there is no upper limit for contractual workers. In case you
suggest that Wage Board employees lacking in “skills and professional
qualification” you will have to do a lot of home work to discount the
fact that in your own organization a Triple MA has gone without
promotion since 1986 and a Tripple Patent-holder with certification
of global originality by GOI is in journalistic wilderness.

As there exists no direct Line of Communication between union and the
Management in your own organization, recourse is being taken to
alternate media like the one being used so that better sense and
wisdom prevails upon him in case he goes through all this written here
— if at all brought to his notice — prior to judicial orders like
the one below or being planned takes him by surprise or with shock as
“legal absolutism” seems stacked up around or against his
organization he has been called upon to head.

Mr Dhariwal should know that gone are the days when the preceding
chairman of the company he now heads (late Mr Ashok Jain) used to
break one-month strike with scotch on rocks. Now his company hates
bonafide Trade Union activities and whenever any employee raises any
point of law, his companies find devious ways like malafide transfer
or supercession to get him out. They have shown the abominable
inclination to hunt down its employee by issuing false and frivolous
show causes and build up the file for future malafide use

No wonder this ends up provoking “steely perseverance” on the part of
workers or its union, as a top functionary of Bihar Government
recently pointed out, which is sooner or later bound to create lot of
problems through the hands of judiciary

Lest Mr Dhariwal does not appear to be crying wolves or shedding
crocodile tears over the plight of Freedom of Press, it would
certainly have been nicer, more fair and certainly ethical or just if
he had looked within his own organization and had been aware of
magnitude of crimes committed by organization he has called upon to
lead especially the one that by blocking the payment of Right Wages to
worker running in crores on the fictitious ground of being different
all the accused managements made pots of money by way of misusing
judicial hard process. As such legal tricks were followed by the
primary employer company at all its 7 or so other Establishments
across the country the money literally defalcated from the workers
would run in crores and money made there from would no money becomes
inevitable for any court to consider.

Has Mr Dhariwal has been briefed about the following paragraph of the
Patna High Court order which not only brings out the crux of the
matter by neatly summing up the whole case but sends all the
managements up for “instant prosecution” while picking big holes in
their whole argument of “different companies” as not only being
bogus-hollow but also false and frivolous which is evident right from
the face of Patna High Court order dated 11.08.2011.

The above materials are prima facie sufficient to establish
that all the three establishments under names and style (1) M/s
Times Publishing House Ltd., M/s Pearl Printwell Ltd. and M/s
Excel Publishing House Ltd. are the Units of one establishment
M/s Bennet Coleman & Co. Ltd., having different names for
internal convenience.
The aforesaid High Court’s order is essentially a batch or composite
order on following Writs separately filed by aforesaid companies: Cr.
Misc 12876/2004, Cr. Misc 14046/2004, Cr. Misc 14344/2004, Cr. Misc
14624/2004) which were all rejected by High Court “without any merit”

I would also like to assure Mr Dhariwal that if he cares to go through
last Manisana Wage Board Recommendations he would surely find that it
also has a unification clause of its own. It would not be necessary to
clarify here that M/S Bennett, Coleman & Company happens to be the
primary employer being the owner and publisher of brand “The Times of
India” all over India and operates through many other companies as
committed ancillary or auxillary units of the former company.
Mr Dhariwal may please be kind to let me correct your vision of
Statutory Wage Board Award : it is in fact a Statutory Tripartite Wage
Board Award which means the company you have been called upon to head
was a party to its hearing right since 1966

As such BCCL had the sole or singular duty to implement Statutory
Tripartite Wage Board Award uniformly all over its Establishments,
especially when it was heard and reheard by the Wage Board authorities
on the strength of Mumbai HC order,

Being committed ancillary unit of their primary employer other
companies do not have separate existence neither in the eye of
aforesaid Award nor in law: they are just supposed to toe the line
followed by their employer company: i.e. FACE THE TRIAL after the
recent Patna High Court order

I would also like to attract the kind attention of new CEO of a
so-called leader of newspaper establishments to another paragraph of
the Patna High Court order which reads as hereunder:
…The trial court without being restricted to the order
taking cognizance for a particular offence, if find fit,
may proceed with trial for other offences also if made
out after framing proper charge.

This indeed would embolden the plant union to enumerate all other
criminal acts of omission and commission perpetrated by the primary
employer company in criminal conspiracy with its committed ancillary
units to cheat and dodge an “award of national importance – to
borrow the words of Patna High Court — while committing crimes
bordering on felony, one after the other, like violations of ID Act/
Factory Act/W.J.Act/TU Act/PF Act, cheating workers, using workers
money to make money for themselves, causing financial or mental injury
to workers, denying Right To Equality, denying promotions for decades,
denying Right To Livelihood, denying Right To Work, disturbing Right
To Religion, breakdown of Labour laws, refusing cooperation to
competent authorities, disregard for advices of competent authorities,
contempt for law of land (IPC) or orders of court, false and frivolous
pleadings and misuse of judicial process, swearing false affidavit in
High Court and blatant lie before SC

I would also draw the attention of new CEO to the number of dead and
retired members who kept on hoping for Right Wages till the end of
life or service as well as those forcibly retrenched staffs who had to
go out solely for demanding the Right Wages in Patna branch of TOI
itself. While the number of retired members have gone up by 3 since
2008, many more are likely to follow suit. In addition, the plant
union i.e. The Times Of India Newspaper Employees Union has already
received many petitions from its own members who are facing acute
crisis and hardship due to non-payment of Right Wages by the
above-named managements in league with its primary employer company.
There is one member who has just retired and could not arrange proper
medical care for his 22-year-old sick son and the latter had to
breathe his last as a result shattering his dream of any
post-retirement help. There is another member who has to undergo
dialysis every now and then because of continuing kidney failure:.
There is one member who lost his daughter because of inability to pay
hefty dowry. Then, there is another member who met an accident in
truck-jeep collision while on duty and had his rib bone broken but had
to go without wages during the period of convalescence. There are
scores of members who have sick-old parents to look after and have
marriageable daughters. Many of them have to pay educational loans for
proper placement of their sons in the hope of post-retirement help.

In case the new CEO should be kind enough to take into account the
denial of Right Wages right since 1989, as mentioned below, the data
on aforesaid Annexure becomes terrifyingly high.

Leave alone giving the Right Wages to workers, their increment has
been denied for many years leaving them all at the mercy of
continuously violated Wage Board Recommendations. Side by side are
contractual workers who get annual increment of more than Rs 10,000 at
least. When Wage Board workers demand what is duly recommended by the
Central Government, they are threatened with prospect of closure of
whole Patna Establishment.

The new CEO should also be aware that its organization approached
Mumbai High Court for direction to Manisana Wage Board to re-hear
them, as would be evident from the aforesaid annexure quoted
hereunder. The said Annexure 2 is nothing but a Press Communique
published in Hindi daily of primary employer company of above-said
managements by Labour and Employment Advisor to Ministry of Labour in
1999 and read as hereunder in Hindi

जैसाकि न्यायलय ने यह निर्देश भी दिया है की समाचार प्रतिष्ठान
न्यायालय के आदेश को वेतन बोर्ड के उद्येश में विलम्ब करन
तथा उसे विफल करने के लिए इस्तेमाल नहीं करेंगे

Yet, despite the existence of ”clubbing” clause not only in Working
Journalist Act (mentioned below) but also in Manisana Wage Board
Recommendation itself as mentioned below, his organization alongwith
its ancillary units continue to claim dichotomy of companies engaged
in the publication of a common product called Patna edition of The
Times of India and are actually making a false and frivolous pleading
in gross contempt of Mumbai High Court order with the sole motive to
“dilly-dally, dodge, delay or defeat” the very purpose of Wage Board
for no less than a decade.

Acting purely on its own whim and fancy it gave grade 9 to
non-journalist and grade 6 to journalists since 1989 and grade 2 to
journalist and grade 6 to non-journalist since 1998 …but certainly not
the Delhi grade as per law and their own admissions mentioned below.

In case the BCCL managements or their employer company try to seek
refuge under any wrongly-interpreted provision of Working Journalists
Union, as they expectedly would, the union would like to quote below
Sec 13 of the same Act reading as hereunder”.
On the coming into operation an order of Central Government under Sec
12 every working journalist shall be entitled to be paid by his
employer wages at the rate which shall, IN NO CASE, be less than
rate of wages specified in the order.

The provision of “functional integrality” stands already introduced in
Working Journalist.Act itself and the introduction of words like
“SAME OR SIMILAR TITLE” and “SAME LANGUAGE IN ANY PLACE IN INDIA”
entitles TOI workers all over India to claim the same grade

Mr Dhariwal should also take notice of the fact that his employer
company possibly have a compulsion or tell-tale mensaria to fight
against or ignore “clubbing” clause said above or working unification
theory held by PF courts as it helps them cover up their continuous
sin of not paying Right Wages and thereby defalcating workers’ money
by UNDERSTATING and UNDERPAYING their PF contributions also.

It may be reiterated that the wages of journalists and non-journalists
are decided by Tripartite Statutory Wage Board constituted by Central
Government after hearing both the workers and management side. It
follows as corollary that PF contributions will have to be calculated
on the basis of wages stipulated by Central government even though not
paid by recalcitrant managements as PF Act clearly uses the word
”PAYABLE” not “PAID”. PF Department will have to pre-suppose PF
contribution as a fixed percentage of Right Wages and by not doing so
it will only end up causing great loss to our workers. The primary
employer management in league with other ancillary units have
deliberately under-stated and under-paid Employers Contribution in
connivance with PF department also..

Thus, by not paying the Right Wage, the managements of Mr Dhariwal’s
company have deliberately understated and underpaid PF dues with the
sole view to befool and cheat not only PF Dept but also the union’s
workers, both…an act which is unpardonable sin under not only in PF
Act but also under IPC. Pleading lack of record for their past
employees is not only a contempt of Delhi High Court order and is
tantamount to dodging cooperation to a statutory body investigating in
the matter under hon’ble Delhi Court order

It may be also pointed out here that when the Delhi High Court fumed
and glared at non-payment of workers’ PF dues for the period of
1986-1989 till date, the employer company of Mr Dhariwal blinked and
buckled to admit that its Patna Establishment was very much “part and
parcel” of its Delhi Establishment.

Mr Dhariwal should also know that his own people have made his
organisation GUILTY OF BLATANT LIE before various courts including
the hon’ble Supreme Court by asserting on sworn affidavit as
hereunder..
…I further say that the union concerned is neither recognized or
authorized by the employees in the matter and as such incompetent to
institute the present proceeding
State of Bihar would confirm the existence of as many as three
Tripartite Agreements with the petitioner managements along with their
primary employer company as it has filed prosecution case against
all above-said managements together with their primary employer
company later had unleashed a mayhem that subsided only after
mass-termination of as many 300 employees and also the illegal closure
of its Hindi daily in Patna.
Mr Dhariwal should also know that there is complete breakdown of
labour laws in all the companies and as the records available with
state of Bihar would show that the above-said companies along with
their employer company are freely committing unfair labour practices
(vide clause nos. 1c,4a,4c,4d,4c,9,11,15 of Fifth Schedule) one after
another.

Earlier, finding prima facie evidences of other unfair labour practies
under different clauses of Fifth Schedule of ID Act, State complainant
has filed cases against these companies which are pending
adjudication in Civil Court.

The morale of such a long story is that Mr Dhariwal should at first
clean his own stable before throwing muck on the time-tested theory
of Wage Boards or think in terms of hitting court against any of it.
“Clean breast” theory pre-supposed in judicial process would come in
way of misadventure in this regard. Unions are now quite legally wise
to thwart such attempts.
[b][/b][b][/b][b][/b]

abe sale tum jaise log malik ke paltu kutte ho,sarm karo or chullu bhar pani mein dub kar mar jao.tu to lakho rupee salary le raha hoga,un logo ke bare mein soch jo saat aat hazar rupee mein din kat kar wage board ka intjar kar rahe hain. sala harami.