The Wage Board paradox

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published 13 years ago |  Steve Manuel

ISLAMABAD: It’s a maddening paradox. On the one hand the working journalist is still waiting for the 7th Wage Board to be implemented in reality and on the other hand the top media houses and news channels brazenly continue to hire executive level staff at absurd salaries.

What makes it so frustrating is that the bulk of reporters, sub-editors, proofreaders, layout artistes, copywriters, assistant producers, producers, cameramen, photographers and support staff currently get salaries that are not commensurate with their efforts and skill set.

They are forced to look for other avenues of income and quite often fall prey to well placed predators on the look out for favors or seeking to promote their personal agendas. With no other feasible alternative on the horizon, these valuable cogs of the media industry resort to giving their real profession a lower priority while spending more time on establishing personal businesses or working elsewhere to make two ends meet.

This would not be necessary if the Wage Board was implemented as per the express instructions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. And yet the media house managements continue their dilly-dallying and delaying tactics.

A case in point would be the route taken by the South Asian News Agency (SANA) management at the beginning of the year. In a bid to dodge implementing the Wage Board, the management resorted to forcing employees to sign a debatable document; the chief editor introduced a six-month ‘employment agreement form’.

According to the agreement, no one employee could claim permanent employment or association with the agency for more than six months. Employment, thereafter, would be subject to renewal or extension.

When some employees did not accept the agreement, they were threatened with termination, being told that it was a requirement of the SANA administrative board and the Ministry of Broadcasting and Information.

When the management failed to convince the employees, the bureau chief, news editor and reporters were amongst those whose entry to the office was banned.

This just goes to show the level the management of media houses and news agencies are willing to go to avoid implementing the 7th Wage Board.

Meanwhile, actual media workers continue to suffer as media houses persist in using such tactics as lay-offs, downsizing and delay in payment of salaries to suppress and bind their workers.

It is not something new or unique. Nothing has changed in the practice of media houses since the first Wage Board was to be implemented in 1960. It just shows what low value the ‘seths’, ‘caliphs’ and management of media houses put on the source of their income, the worker.

And yet on another paradoxical level the media management has no qualms; CEO’s, directors, upper level management, anchors, analysts and talk show hosts get salaries that easily rival those of their counterparts in the top media houses of the west.

Some of these charlatans and impostors get paid more in one month than the salary of sub-editors and reporters for the whole year and here we are not even taking into consideration the lower level working journalist or support staff that make up the bulk of the media industry.

Even worse, many of the top earning anchors, talk show hosts and higher echelon management have never had any journalistic experience. They are mostly political stooges or individuals inherited through corrupt influential forces in need of a convenient, well-placed mouthpiece with easy and high visibility access.

Such individuals have been put in a position where they can shape and mould the views and ideology of the nation and they do so with impunity. Millions follow their very word, not knowing what fakes they are and the lies and prejudices they spew forth until they are exposed… if ever.

What really rankles is that these folks, who make millions of rupees every month through various means, treat and trample genuine media workers without giving it a second’s thought.  They behave in an arrogant manner, are demanding and abusive, and think they know it all. Even though their research teams do all their work, they believe they are the ones doing the real work. They are myopic if not delusional.

When the time comes for the payment of salaries their cheques are handed to them three days to a week in advance. On the other hand, the genuine worker’s salary is delayed, has been slashed or even halved. He has to hope and pray for his salary.

It is indeed a shame that the genuine workers of the media industry have to literally beg for their salaries and the implementation of the 7th Wage Board at a time when certain media houses and news channels are hiring groups and teams of cross-jumping workers at top salaries. These are mercenaries, media whores, who go where the money is best and to hell with the so-called ethics that shape and guide journalism.

It makes no sense.

Pause for a moment to think... just how much of an increase could a lower level media worker possibly expect to get through the Wage Board?

A few thousand rupees per month!!

Weigh that up against the thousands of rupees one individual, an anchor per se, gets. Do the maths; it’s glaringly obvious.

The “List of 19” that was all over the Internet recently,  genuine or fake, would give one a good idea of what kind of money is involved and who are the people making it. It reads like a who’s who of the Pakistan electronic and print media industry.  Many of the people up there have no journalistic background and yet they have been entrusted to do a job that demands journalistic expertise and integrity.

It is no wonder then when they are exposed they damage the whole industry as has been the case with Dunya-Geo and the Bukhari-Lucqman-Riaz affair. It is the unwillingness of such channels to continue to pay due to the real worker that might have resulted in the expose.

Resentment is a volatile motivator.

And still the management of media houses and news agencies continue to ignore the need for implementing the Wage Board, finding one excuse after the other not to do so, foremost of which is their argument that they do not have the financial resources.

If that is the case, there is a serious need for the government and the media houses, perhaps through PEMRA and APNEC, to form a genuine think tank and find a way to bolster the flow of revenue. There is a need to think out of the box. Alternative methods have to be explored. Doable avenues need to be found.

There has been talk recently, and the suggestion is not new, that advertising should be linked to payment of journalists and media workers.

This is just one suggestion, a proposal. Surely there must be others.

But above all, the burning issue is that real media workers should get their dues and now; the 7th Wage Board needs implementation immediately and honestly.

(The writer is the Chief Editor of JournalismPakistan.com)