JournalismPakistan.com
June 02, 2018

KARACHI – The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has condemned what it claims is a violation of its agreement with the government on the composition of 8th Wage Board Award for Newspaper Employees by former Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb.

“We strongly condemn the induction of two new members by the government in the Wage Award 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.

“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 Board. However, to the surprise of PFUJ only three out of four names provided by the PFUJ were included in the board while the minister added her ‘favourite’ journalist as the fourth representative,” the statement said.

“The PFUJ immediately lodged a protest against this outside induction, but did not make it a bone of contention in the larger interest of journalists,” said the statement. “The new inductions are totally in violation of that agreement and Ms. Aurangzeb proved she is not trustworthy. There are reports that Ms. Aurangzeb has inducted her so-called ‘uncle’ as a representative who does not represent PFUJ.”