Mumbai Media Persons Resolve to fight through all possible means for implementation of Wage Boards Award on Ground Level Nearly one hundred journalists and non-journalists of news industry from various establishments in and around Mumbai today resolved to fight through all possible means for actual implementation at the ground level of the Union Government’s notified Justice Majithia Wage Board Awards and counter attempts of the newspapers barons to negate this Award.
In a ‘discussion on Wage Board Awards“ called by the Brihanmumbai Union of Journalists (BUJ), the representatives from various news agencies and newspapers, including PTI, UNI, Times of India Group, Mid-day, Free Press Journal, Rajsthan Patrika, Bhaskar Group and several plant-level trade unions decided to form a Mumbai –level apex coordination committee to not only monitor legal and other developments in this regard but also to extend all possible support to the cause at the state and national level. They also decided to hold a mass meet on every second Saturday of the month on the Wage Boards issue to forge wider unity.
Addressing the meet , the BUJ General Secretary M J Pandey exhorted the media persons to be ready for a long-drawn struggle for implementation of the Wage Boards Awards as this time almost all the newspapers barons have joined hands to negate this and a few of them have even moved to the Supreme Court where the final arguments are to begin from December 7. “ Newspapers like Mid-day ( Mumbai and Dainik Jagran have already started a blatant illegal drive through coercion by asking their employees to sign on a printed form to declare to not to opt for the Awards“, Pandey said, adding that many more news establishments might follow suit.
A representative from Benett ,Coleman & Company disclosed that that the Company management had decided not to implement variable pay. C PJha, President of the UNI Employees Federation, suggested media persons to prepare popular literature and solicit support from the society at large in general and labour unions in particular for effective implementation of the Awards. “We also need to put pressure on the Government through elected representatives, including MPs and MLAs to bring exhaustive amendments in the Working Journalist Act so as to plug certain loopholes in the more than 60-year old Act which gives sope to newspapers owners to deny their employees legal wages, he said.
