Newspaper journalists, employees demand 60 per cent interim relief

Kochi, Aug 2 (UNI) Representatives of newspaper and news agency journalists and other employees today urged the two National Wage Boards for Working and Non-Working Journalists, to announce a 60 per cent interim relief.

Appearing before the two boards, headed by former Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court K Narayana Kurup, representatives of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), Kerala Newspaper Employees Federation and Kerala UNI Employes Union also highlighted the need for job security in print media.

The wage boards, holding their first meeting in Kerala, met with the representatives of working journalists and newspaper and news agency employees in the pre-lunch session. In the post-lunch session, the boards conducted an internal meeting.

While the electronic media does not come under the purview of the wage boards, it was represented by the unions that many print media organisations had diversified into electronic media with the resources generated by the print media. Hence, electronic media workers should also be included for the fixation of wages, they said.

The wage boards members who attended the meeting included Mr K M Sahni, Member-Secretary for both boards, and Mr B P Singh and Mr P N Prasanna Kumar, independent members common to both the boards.

The other members who attended were Deputy Secretary, Wage Board H C Gaur, DDG Wage Board Harcharan Singh, Mr Naresh Mohan of Indian Newspaper Society, Mr Gurinder Singh of All India Small and Medium Newspaper Federation, Mr Prataprai Tarachand Shah of Indian Language Newspaper Association, Mr K Vikram Rao of Indian Federation of Working Journalists, Mr Nand Kishore Trikha of National Union of Journalists, Mr Suresh Akhouri of Indian Journalists Union, Mr Madan Phadnis of All India Newspaper Employees Federation, Mr Uma Shankar Mishra of the National Federation of Newspaper Employees and Mr M S Yadav of Press Trust of India.

UNI