Islamabad: Over hundreds of employees belonging to different newspapers and TV channels like Daily Times, Daily Khabrain, Capital TV, News One, Channel 5, Aaj TV are not being paid, claims Matiullah Jan, a renowned journalist in his column.
According to the report, these journalist have either been sacked or refused salaries for periods ranging from one month to over 11 months.
News One network has not paid salaries to its employees for the period of over seven months. Daily Times is defaulting over 11 months salary of its employees. Capital TV is another defaulter over three months of arrears. Over 50 employees went on strike in Islamabad office of Capital TV in October 2013. Capital TV refused to pay them immediately and announced to pay only those who were sacked or who had resigned.
Many of these media workers do not even have their job contracts or appointment letters.
In the report, Jan reveals that there has also been incidents in which journalist have committed suicide because of their financial crisis. He said that none of media outlets have ever published any such news however, some media outlets did show courage , though not for long. In a programme on Dawn News “Apna Gareban” a couple of years ago, they reported a story of a young media worker who had committed suicide after non-payment of 5-months salary by Channel-5 in Lahore. It happened just before the marriage of his sister. The story never got reported or published widely for many months before Dawn News aired it.
It seems that truth is in short supply but it is not in much demand either. The public indifference to the plight of journalists, unholy nexus between government and media tycoons and every government’s inherent compulsion to keep the rift between media owners and their employees has only added to the woes of working journalists and employees.
He also said that country’s national press unions, business and media regulatory authorities is shamelessly and helplessly watching from the sidelines the exploitative, unstoppable and unaccountable genie of media.
Institutions like Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees (ITNE) and National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) have failed to appreciate the enormity of the challenge and seem to have accepted their inability to perform. These forums seem to have become old age houses for the retired job seekers where sacked and salary-starved journos go for justice and return with “next date.”
“Even the Supreme Court seems to have drawn a line which it doesn’t want to cross. Its judgment on Wage Board is yet to be fully implemented. While the Court depended a lot on media and its reports to exercise its extra-ordinary human rights jurisdiction, it has shown special restraint in dealing with big media groups. Numerous cases from tax and regulatory authorities are pending in courts for a long time with restraining orders favoring the media groups. It is ironical that the apex court enforces, what it thinks, are human rights on reports of journalists who themselves may be unpaid for months”, says the report
- See more at: http://www.saach.tv/2013/11/05/journalists-straving-as-rich-media-outlets-refuse-to-pay/#sthash.9bta1jox.dpuf
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