Newspaper employees welcome new wage board proposal

Kolkata,Dec 06 (UNI) All India Newspaper Employees Federation (AINEF), the largest body of newspaper employees in the country, today welcomed Union labour minister K Chandrashekhar Rao's assurance to announce a new wage board for newspaper and news agency employees soon. Expressing guarded optimism that the new wage board would be constituted without further delay, senior AINEF members, who had assembled here in connection with its two-day annual meeting since yesterday, said the formation of a new wage board was long overdue since the last wage Board headed by justice Manisana Singh was constituted about seven years ago. Later Speaking to UNI on the sidelines of the meeting AINEF President Mohan Phadnis severely criticised the previous BJP led NDA government for ''bluntly'' ignoring the just demand of the country's thousands of employees in print media.It was shameful that they preferred to take stance on behalf of newspaper employers and decided to ignore our demand, Mr Phadnis said and also blamed the industry for not implementing the previous wage boards recommendations in many units.Simultaneously he also congratulated the present UPA Fovernment, particularly the present labour minister Mr Rao, for taking up the issue within six months of returning to power. ''Under the circumstance, the last Friday's announcement by the union minister about the formation of a new wage board soon had given us new hope and we heartily congratulate them for this,'' said Mr Phadnis.He also announced the Federation's plan to submit a memorandum to Mr Rao this month urging him to announce the new wage board immediately to bring a new ray of hope among thousands of newspaper and news agency employees throughout the country. Asked to comment on the increasing demand to include the members of the electronic media under the purview of the new wage board along with those from the newspaper and news agency employees, the AINEF president described it as the ''just demand'' and said the Minister had also suggested suitable amendments to the present pay structure in tune with the market economy. Describing the situation of media persons in neighbouring Bangladesh and Pakistan as ''almost similar to that of ours'' with most of the regional and small newspapers refusing to pay the right kind of wages to both journalist and non-journalist employees, Mr Phadnis however, described the posibility of forming a united pan Asia forum in this regard as ''remote''.