GUWAHATI, May 24 - The All Assam Media Workers Union (AAMWU) has appealed to the State government to include non-journalist media workers in the State governments� insurance coverage policy.
In a statement, the Union�s president Sudipta Sarkar and secretary Dipak Bhuyan said that the State government has several welfare schemes for the journalists, but these schemes have not yet included the non-journalist media workers.
The State government recently announced a Rs 50-lakh insurance cover for journalists reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic.
�We urge the government to include the entire journalists working in this tough time in the insurance policy.�
�We also urge the government to include these workers in the Journalist Medical Welfare Scheme,� the statement added.
The AAMWU also opposed the government�s decisions on labour reform. The changes are �anti-labour� and �cruel�, it said.
�The introduction of fixed-term employment and increase in shift duty of workers during the COVID-19 period from eight to 12 hours, minimum number of workers and among others will only benefit the industrialists. On the other hand, the daily wage earners will suffer a lot. We demand schemes that directly would benefit the poor or the daily wage earners of the State,� the statement added.
