Source: PTI

New Delhi, 20 August 2004: A Parliamentary Standing Committee has asked the government to consider constituting a new wage board for journalists and non-journalists, and strongly recommended that steps should be taken to implement recommendations of the Manisana wage boards by all newspaper establishments.

In its first report, the Standing Committee on Labour headed by P K Vasudevan Nair has noted that though the second National Commission on Labour has recommended that there was no need for any wage board, statutory or otherwise, for fixing the wage rate for workers in any industry "there is a persistent demand" from various employees' unions to constitute new wage boards for them. "The committee, therefore, desires that before taking any final decision on the recommendations of the National Commission of Labour, the government should also consider the demands of the employees' unions for constituting a new wage board," the 63-page report, tabled in parliament, said.

The committee said it was "constrained" to note the fact that the implementation of the recommendations of the Manisana wage boards for fixation and revision of wages for journalists and non-journalists, newspaper and news agency employees was the responsibility of the state governments but even after a lapse of three and a half years, only some of the newspaper establishments have fully implemented it. Others have either partially implemented or not implemented the recommendations of the wage board, "which indicates nothing but the poor monitoring by the central government," the report said.

It "strongly recommended" that the state governments be persuaded vigorously to implement fully the recommendations of the wage boards by the remaining newspaper establishments. The committee desired that the ministry should also persuade the state governments of Haryana, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Punjab and Uttaranchal and the Union territories of Chandigarh and Pondicherry to constitute the tripartite committees for speedy and effective implementation of the recommendations of the wage boards.

The committee noted that the federation of the PTI employees' union had made a persistent demand for the constitution of new wage boards for journalist and non-journalist employees. It said that when the ministry was asked about the National Commission on Labour's recommendation and PTI federation's demand, it replied that the commission had recommended that there was no need for any wage board, statutory or otherwise for fixing the wage rates for workers in any industry. However, in view of the sensitivity of the issue, the matter requires to be further deliberated, it said.

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