The working journalists are themselves riddled by the longstanding problem of being paid a salary hardly enough to make ends meet.[break]
“The percentage of working journalists who have not been paid the minimum salary by media organizations is 37,” stated the annual report of Minimum Wage Fixation Committee submitted to the Ministry of Information and Communications on Wednesday.
Worse still, 32 percent of the journalists have not been paid their promised salaries, the report further said, adding 14 percent of them do not even receive their salaries regularly.
While the Working Journalists Act stipulates that 85 percent of the journalists in any media organization must be permanent staffers, only 21 percent of them were found to be working under permanent status.
In a country where the inflation rate is touches a record high every year, the Act entitles a working journalist a meager salary of Rs 5,200 and other employees (non-journalists) Rs 4,600 per month.
“This is itself a very disgracing provision,” said P Kharel, professor at the Central Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, TU.
Likewise, the report also unearthed the fact that 45 percent of working journalists have not been given their appointment letters thus depriving them of their rights and benefits.
Chairman of the committee Mahendra Bista, who is himself a journalist, said the tendency of employers to deliberately trade a journalist´s labor at a dirt cheap rate had led to the latter being deprived of their minimum rights.
“The employers want to pay journalists the lowest possibly pay and the latter have been compromising,” Bista said. “Media owners do not give appointment letters to journalists fearing that if they do so the latter cannot be sacked at the whims of the management.”
- Minimum wage not paid to 37 percent journos
- Promised salaries not paid to 32 percent
- Regular salaries not paid to 14 percent
- Appointment letter not given to 45 percent
- No provision of leave in 36 percent organizations
He said the crux of the problem lies in the inability of the journalists to exert pressure on their employers to secure their rights.
“The employers assume that labor exploitation is not only found in “small” organizations but also in national level and influential media organizations.
Kharel said tendency of media house owners to deprive the working journalists of their rights and benefits is an act of exploitation and that it was the government´s responsibility to ensure that the Act is implemented.
“The media owners must pay. Else, the government must intervene,” said Kharel.
´Take action against non-compliers´
The committee demanded that the government must take stringent action against those media organizations that have been found flouting the provisions of the Act.
It has recommended the government to stall the grading procedure of such media organizations and deprive them of advertisements allotted by the former, as per clause 33 (A) of the Act.
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