Author: Ravindra Dhariwal
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 2, 2011
URL: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-02/edit-page/29608945_1_wage-board-freedoms-newspaper-industry
Introduction: A wage board is simply a government tool to control the Press
What better way to control the Press than
to decide the salary of newspaper employees? How can a journalist write fearlessly
against a government when he knows that it is this same government that decides
his salary? Successive governments in India have found a simple way to try
to control the Press: set up a statutory wage board for newspapers, fix unrealistically
high wages enforceable under law.
The Indian newspaper industry is the only
industry in thecountrytohaveastatutory wage board at all! Even other media
sectors like TV, radio, internet, etc, do not have this retrograde practice.
Why, in this era of liberalisation where licences, quotas, permits etc are
being dismantled in all spheres of economic activity, would it be that only
the newspaper industry has wages fixed by the government; particularly when
they are not based on market demand and supply, and are without consideration
for skills and professional qualifications?
Singling out the newspaper industry like this
is plainly discriminatory. It is aimed at fettering the freedoms granted to
the media by the Constitution. More so, when it resolutely ignores the recommendations
of the National Commission on Labour headed by the former labour minister,
Ravindra Verma, which had, in 2002, stated:
"There is no need for any wage board,
statutory or otherwise, for fixing wage rates for workers in any industry."
In fact, statutory wage boards have not been
constituted in any other industry after 1966 (except in the sugar industry
where the last wage board was set up 26 years ago and subsequently abolished).
This did not result in any unrest as the personnel were satisfied with the
wages, and their unions were able to effectively negotiate wages in a market
demandsupply scenario.
Hence, the primary motive in wage boards being
constituted, only for newspapers, repeatedly, and their recommendations being
accepted without regard to reality, would only appear to be to make the Press
dependent on the government, thereby allowing people in power to utilise this
leverage.
Fixing wage boards, and giving them arbitrary
powers without adequate guidelines, is not merely undemocratic and unviable,
but an outright attempt to influence. It is also against our most basic freedoms
enshrined in the Constitution. Our fundamental right to freedom of speech
and expression as guaranteed by 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution not only includes
the freedom to write and publish what the author considers proper, but also
the freedom to carry on the business of print media so that information may
be disseminated and excessive prohibition circumventing such freedoms by state
intervention and/or regulations may be avoided.
How can newspapers carry on their business
when they have no say in the process of salary fixing of their own employees?
This is outright manipulation of their business whereby the government holds
out a threat to their viability and eventual survival. How can newspapers
remain viable if already disproportionately bloated wage bills turn astronomical?
For instance, they would, as per the latest recommendations, have to pay peons
and driversuptoRs45,000amonth - several times what a jawan risking his life
on our borders gets! Why doesn't the government pay its employees the salary
it is recommending?
Ironically, in this entire exercise, the
government neither has to pay a penny of the wages it so blithely mandates,
nor does it have to bail out the newspapers which sink under the weight of
such action. A Hewitt survey indicates that wage board employees before these
current recommendations are getting 26-44% more than their counterparts even
in high- profile MNCs.
That is why the latest Justice Majithia wage
board's recommendation of a huge 80-100% wage hike - coming on top of an unprecedented
30% interim relief with effect from January 2008 - has led to an outcry in
the newspaper industry which, thanks to previous mandates, already had very
high entry level wages for workmen vis-avis market rates. The print media's
apex Indian Newspaper Society has said that implementing these rates would
shut down most newspapers - and not just the small and medium ones. A leading
newspaper group, ABP Pvt Ltd, has already gone to the Supreme Court.
It is now in the government's own interest
to restore this basic freedom to the Press so that it can carry on its business
without state regulation. Because tools like the wage board not only pressurise
the Press and control the media in the crudest and most untenable manner possible
- but also subvert our very basic freedoms, by making the Press unviable.
The writer is CEO, Bennett, Coleman &
Co Ltd.
