Interests of Media Employees Would be Fully Safeguarded: Union Labour Minister

New Delhi, 4 October. Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Gangwar has categorically stated that the interests of media employees would not be compromised. He  told a delegation of the ‘Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees’ organisations’, comprising the Indian Federation of Working Journalists, All India Federation of PTI Employees’ Unions, National Federation of Newspaper Employees, All Inda Newspaper Employees Federation, Indian Journalists Union, National Union of Journalists (I) and UNI Workers’ Union, that all media employees of electronic and web-portals would be included along with the employees of the print medium in the proposed legislation. He dispelled the fear of the 25-member strong delegation of the apex trade union bodies of the media and that the constitution of the Wage Board would be specifically provided in the rule of the Act. The Minister said in no uncertain terms that it would be ensured that the Wage Board for revising the wages and allowances of the media employees were regularly set up.

A memorandum was submitted to the Minister by M.S. Yadav of the PTI, Hemant Tiwari, IFWJ, Sabina Inderjit of IJU, Manohar Singh of the NUJ(I) and ML Joshi of the UNI. The Minister also advised the trade union bodies of the media organisations to apprise with their views to the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Labour.

The officials present during the meeting explained to the delegation that the special provisions will be added in the rules of the proposed Code for the Working Journalists. The Minister was informed by the delegation leaders that the media employees all over the country were highly agitated and disturbed with the proposed move of the government to repeal the Working Journalists Act and subsume it with other disparate Acts, which have no commonality with the Working Journalist Act.  Shri Gangwar promised that his government was committed to protecting the freedom of speech and expression and independence of the media, which was so essential for any vibrant democracy and therefore, his government would never even think of diluting the independence and freedom of media.

Among others who included in the delegation were Parmanand Pandey, Mohan Bahu Agarwal, Rinku Yadav, Alkshendra Singh Negi, Ravindra Mishra (IFWJ), Bhuwan Chaubey (PTI), Nanda Kishor Pathak (AINEF), M.L. Joshi (UNI).