All Pakistan Newspapars Employees Confederation (Apnec) and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) urge government not to bow to All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) blackmail
ISLAMABAD- All Pakistan Newspaper Employees Confederation (Apnec) and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) have slammed APNS Secretary General’s refusal to implement wage board award and urged Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf to take proper action.
In an open letter, the office-bearers of Apnec and PFUJ criticised and termed APNS secretary general’s “derogatory” remarks against wage board as contempt of court.
The open letter asks the authorties to take notice of “the blatant violation of law and contempt of court being committed by All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS).”
The letter is signed by Abdul Hameed Chhapra and Pervez Shaukat, Chairman and Secretary General of Apnec and 1.H. Rashed and Fauzia Shahid, President and General of PFUJ, respectively.
They urged the government ‘not to bow to APNS blackmailing and strong-arms tactics and to ensure that workers of newspaper industry are given their due and legal rights.”
The letter said that the APNS secretary general’s refusal to implement the interim wage award is tantamount to contempt of court “which was determined by Mr. Justice Raja Afrasiab Khan, a former judge of the Supreme Court, who is now Chairman of the 7th Wage Board for Newspaper Employees.”
Apnec and PFUJ said that “there has been a 150 percent rise in the cost of living since the last wage board award was given in 1995.” They said the globalisation and free market economy did not mean that the rights of workers could be usurped, given to them by an act of parliament.
The honourable Judge had announced the interim award after listening to the arguments of the employers and employees representatives on December 15, 2000,” the statement said.
“What is more surprising and disturbing for PFUJ and APNEC is the fact that the government has turned a blind eye to this contempt of court by the APNS, whose Seceretary General Arshad Zuberi had recently termed the Wage Board as a regrettable legacy of arbitrary determination of wage structures, the letter observed.
“We would like to remind him that the Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act 1973, under which Wage Award is given to newspaper employees after every five years, was passed by the highest legislative organ of this country, i.e. the parliament,” the letter said. The letter said “It is a brazen attempt on the part of the APNS Secretary General to belittle the parliament by taking in such a derogatory manner.
The letter said, “We would like to inform the APNS that the Act mentioned above had been passed by the supreme legislative body of people’s representatives and no individual or coterie of self seeking individuals are empowered to repeal it, as every government is duty-bound to implement the laws to the land.” It added that only and elected parliament can repeal a law, the letter said.
It said that on behalf of APNS executive committee, Zuberi contends that in these days of free market economy and globalisation, there is no room for government-regulated wage structures.
It calls for intellectual acumen to realise that globalisation and World Trade Organisation no where lay down trampling over the rights of the workers. Free market economy does not stipulate usurping the rights of others. “Globalisation is a system of economy and no system can get along without regulation and legislation.
The letter said, ” We would like to tell the APNS excutive committee that free market is world’s apart from economic anarchy. What the APNS executive committee is calling for is anarchy, the law of the jungle, for which there is no room in today’s civilised world.”
Earlier, an emergency joint meeting of Apnec an PFUJ expressed grave concern over the consistent refusal of the newspaper owners and tycoons to implement a judicial decision given by Wage Board chairman, who has announced an interim increase in the salaries of journalists and newspaper workers w.e.f November 1, 2000.
“The meeting strongly regrets that the government has succumbed to the blackmailing and pressure of APNS and has announced 25 percent increase in the tariff of government advertisements besides giving them concessions in the shape of reduction in the import duty of newsprint.”
The PFUJ and Apnec demand of the government to immediately suspend the increase in the government tariff and other concessions given in the recent past. “The emergency meeting calls upon the government to link this increase with the implementation of the interim award and regularisation of all contractual employees in the newspaper industry,” it added.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:1/30/2001
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