GUWAHATI, March 22 � The Assam Tribune Employees� Union (ATEU) today met Governor Janaki Ballab Patnaik and submitted a memorandum to him regarding immediate implementation of the Majithia Wage Board recommendations.
Representatives of the ATEU took out a procession from the Assam Tribune premises around 10:30 am and submitted the memorandum to the Governor at Raj Bhawan around 12:30 pm.
The memorandum signed by ATEU president Saifuddin Ahmed and general secretary Dugdha Ram Kalita urged the Governor to prevail upon the Central Government to take immediate action on the report and the five resolutions passed by a majority vote in the wage boards.
Accepting the memorandum, the Governor assured the ATEU that he would take up the matter with the Government at the earliest.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment vide two notifications dated May 24, 2007 constituted two separate statutory wage boards � one for the working journalists and another for other newspaper employees � under the chairmanship of Dr Justice K Narayana Kurup, for the purpose of fixing and revising rates of wages in respect of working journalists and other newspaper employees respectively.
After the resignation of Dr Kurup, the Government of India appointed Justice GR Majithia as chairman of the boards on February 28, 2009.
The wage boards after detailed discussions recommended an interim relief of 30 per cent of the existing wage of the employees on January 2008 with immediate effect pending final report of the wage boards.
�The term of the Wage Boards came to an end on May 23, 2010 but since the work of the wage boards was not completed by then, the Government of India extended its tenure until the end of 2010. The wage boards submitted their final report to the Labour Ministry on December 31, 2010. The report also includes five resolutions passed by a majority vote in the wage board discussions. Three months have passed but nothing has happened,� the memorandum stated.
�With the unprecedented price rise, the employees are finding it hard to make both ends meet with the present wages,� the memorandum stated.
The memorandum stated that in the absence of any official statement from the Government, the employees are in the dark as to what would be the fate of the recommendations.
It needs mention here that the All India Newspaper Employees Federation, the central body of newspaper employees in the country, of which the ATEU is also a member, met at Nagpur recently and took a serious view of the situation and demanded immediate action on the report of the wage boards and implementation of it at all levels.
It also directed its affiliates to hold rallies at district, State and Central levels. A rally is being organized in Delhi on April 22 by the representatives of all unions to press for immediate action failing which the agitation will be intensified.
