7th Wage Board Award: SC enquires why the award has not been implemented

Council for APNS argues the NECS Act violates the constitution.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court (SC) has enquired from newspaper owners and media houses about the delay in the implementation of the 7th Wage Board Award in the absence of a stay order.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was hearing three civil petitions for leave to appeal filed by the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and media houses against the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) decision upholding the 7th Wage Board Award.

In May this year, a SHC division bench had rejected three constitutional petitions filed by the APNS and media houses, challenging the Newspapers Employees Conditions of Service (NECS) Act 1973. The Wage Board and the implementation tribunal for newspaper employees declared that the latest award is binding on newspapers’ proprietors and they were directed by the SHC to implement it.

Senior advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, councel for APNS and media houses, contended that the wage board award has become a provincial subject after the 18th amendment and that the wage board is an executive and not a judicial body. He declared the NECS Act an arbitrary law and said the government selectively applied the act which contains provisions related to the print media only and not the electronic media.

Pirzada argued that the wage board award is linked to fundamental rights, but the NECS Act violates fundamental rights and denies the right of access to justice. He said the act’s provisions were a violation of articles 2(A), 4, 10(A), 18, 19, 24 and 25 of the constitution. The attorney cited a number of laws which he claimed favoured journalists, including Payment of Wages 1936, Provident Act 1925, Factories Act 1934, Industrial & Commercial Standard Ordinance 1968, Industrial Relations Ordinance 2002, Social Security Ordinance 1965, Cost of Living Act 1963, Employees Old Age Benefit 1964 and Minimum Wages Ordinance.

Replying to the chief justice’s question, Pirzada informed the bench that section 2 of the NECS Act spells out that journalists include editors, news editors, reporters, cartoonists, photographers and proofreaders provided they are working fulltime, whereas non-journalist staff includes office managers, clerical staff, composers, accountants and peons. The hearing was adjourned till Wednesday (today). Councel for the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Salman Akram Raja, will counter Pirzada’s arguments once he has completed them to defend the 7th Wage Board Award.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2011.