8th Wage Board: PFUJ condemns violation of agreement

Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has condemned the violation of the agreement between the PFUJ and the government on the composition of the 8th Wage Board Award for newspaper employees by former Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.
"We strongly condemn the induction of two new members by the government in the wage board as it is a clear violation of agreement between the PFUJ and the Information Ministry," said a joint statement issued by PFUJ President Afzal Butt and Secretary General Ayub Jan Sarhandi.
They said that on April 9th hundreds of journalists from all over the country had gathered in Islamabad to hold a protest demonstration in front of the Parliament House to demand the formation of Wage Board Award. However, at the last minute when the journalists procession was about to leave the National Press Club, Islamabad, the then Information Minister personally came to the Press Club alongwith officials of the Information Ministry as well as Principal Information Officer Saleem Baig and almost begged the journalists not to take out the procession.
After several hours of negotiations, an agreement was reached between the former Information Minister and the PFUJ leadership wherein not only she agreed to form the 8th Wage Board but the names of Wage Award Committee were also finalised.
The PFUJ gave a list of four members from its side while Maryam Aurangzeb contacted the Office-bearers of All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) to seek names of their representatives. The APNS leadership also provided names of their four representatives to sit on the Wage Award Board.
This agreement was made in the presence of PIO and other senior officers of the Ministry of Information including Secretary Information. It took two days to the Minister to issue the formal notification about the constitution of the 8th Wage Award. However, to the surprise of PFUJ only three out of four names provided by the PFUJ were included in the Wage Award while the Minister added some of her own favourite journalist as the fourth representative.
The PFUJ immediately lodged a protest over this outside induction but did not made it a bone of contention in the larger interest of journalists. "The new inductions are totally in violation of that agreement and Marriyum Aurangzeb proved she is not trust worthy," the joint statement said. The PFUJ President and Secretary General said that there are reports that Marriyum Aurangzeb has inducted her so-called "uncle" as a representative who does not represent PFUJ.
The PFUJ leaders also pointed out that APNS has also expressed its reservations over the two new inductees. "We strongly condemn this breach of agreement by the government at the behest of Former Information Minister and call upon the government to withdraw the two new additions in the Wage Award committee," the statement said.
They said that the PFUJ will discuss this issue at the next meeting of its Federal Executive Council meeting to draw future course of action. "The formation of 8th Wage Board was a credit to the PML-N government but Maryam Aurangzeb discredited her own government by breaching the agreement," the PFUJ leaders said.