–Undeclared Emergency in Media: Fight Continues!
MORE than 150 journalists and non-journalist employees of several newspapers and a news agency on Monday held a demonstration in front of the office Indian National Press ( Bombay ) P Ltd –publishers of Navshakti and Free Press Journal– at Nariman Point to protest against the sacking of 40 employees, including 16 contract workers who were fighting a legal case.
Apart from raising slogans, Media employees also waved placards that said ‘Journalists-Media Workers unity Zindabad’, ‘Media barons: Honour SC order and Implement Majithia wage board’ and ‘Dont shoot the Messenger, Don’t sack the Messenger’.
The demonstration in front of the Indian National Press ( Bombay ) P Ltd –publishers of Navshakti and Free Press Journal– at Nariman Point was part of a campaign to ‘Fight undeclared Emergency in the Media’, and oppose sacking of media employees, organised by the Joint Action Committee (JAC) to fight for the Implementation of the Majithia Wage Board for newspaper and news agency employees.
The sacking of over 1000 media employees by Hindustan Times and Anand Bazaar Patrika (ABP) group of Publications in the recent past has already shocked and angered media workers all over the country. More so, in the backdrop of the failure of media managements to implement the wage award, the sackings have been totally illegal as well as in breach of the Supreme Court’s order on the implementation of the wage board award.
So much so, scores of newspaper employees have been pushed into an abyss of unemployment and poverty overnight that has unleashed a terrifying environment of fear in the media industry. The current situation is unprecedented in the history of independent India, with newspaper managements determined to brazenly trample laws enacted for the newspaper industry and Supreme Court Orders pertaining to implementation of the Majithia Wage Board Award. Simply put, the newspaper managements, under the banner of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), have declared war on their employees: this is an undeclared emergency in the media.
The sudden closures and terminations, without any warning or provocation, have already resulted in the tragic and untimely death of Arvind Sharma, a senior staffer of Hindustan Times — soon after his illegal termination by the company.
Later, a memorandum was submitted to the Indian National Press ( Bombay ) P Ltd condemning the sacking of employees.
The JAC has demanded the reinstatement of all the sacked employees of Press (Indian National Press ( Bombay ) P Ltd and the implementation the Majithia Wage Board Award in toto, thereby maintaining the spirit and letter of the Supreme Court verdict in this regard.
The JAC also maintains that this ‘current situation of undeclared emergency’ in the media is a cause of concern for the public at large. How can newspaper employees who are routinely terrorized by their employers and denied basic rights be expected to fight for the larger rights of society? How can the watch-dogs of society function when they are ‘defanged’ by their employers, the so-called guardians of freedom of speech and expression?
This owner-created climate of fear in the media has also led to the unchecked proliferation of paid news as well as fake news. And this is a cause of concern for all citizens.
All those who care for the flowering of democratic freedoms in the country should come together to ensure that the law of the land should be strictly implemented first in the Fourth Estate itself !