KARACHI, Jan 4: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation (Apnec) have condemned the government’s failure to implement the 7th Wage Award and threatened to re-launch their protest with the boycott of the new parliamentary session.

The PFUJ and Apnec, the two apex bodies of the newspapers employees, said Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani had made a firm commitment before over 100 mediamen at a hotel in Karachi that the Wage Award would be implemented before Eidul Fitr but he could not get it implemented even after Eidul Azha.

Over the past four years, the present parliament twice passed unanimous resolutions both in the National Assembly and in the Senate for the implementation of the 7th Wage Award. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, on the floor of the house, promised immediate implementation of the Wage Award and Information Minister Durrani and his predecessor Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also made similar pledges.

The two organisations decried the continuing delay in the award’s implementation and likened it to denial of fundamental rights of journalists and employees of the newspaper industry.