KARACHI: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has criticised the violation of the April 9 agreement between the PFUJ and the government on the composition of the Eighth Wage Board 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 the 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 on April 9 hundreds of journalists from all over the country had gathered in Islamabad to hold a demonstration outside Parliament House to demand the formation of the Wage Board.

After hour-long negotiations, an agreement was reached between the former federal information minister and the PFUJ on formation of the Wage Board and on composition of the body.

“The PFUJ gave a list of four members from its side while Ms 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.”

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2018