BENNETT, COLEMAN & CO. LTD.
Member Secretary,
National Wage Boards for Working Journalists &
Newspaper Employees, Employees Provident Fund Office Complex
New Delhi -110075.
Sir,
This has reference to the notice dated 16th November, 2007, issued by you in the newspapers inviting representations from newspaper establishments, giving opinion on the fixing of wages for newspaper employees.
At the outset we would like to submit that Wage Boards are not required for fixing the wages or allowances of the newspaper employees, as wages are now market driving in view of the globalization and opening of media to foreign investment. Formation of Wage Board is an OUTDATED CONCEPT THROUGH WHICH Government wants to control the working of Newspaper organizations and at the same time make attempt to keep journalists on its right side. This is a legacy of the controls, licence quota, permit raj day. Companies should have freedom to fix wages of its employees based on merit, performance and productivity.
In our opinion, there is no need to tinker with the existing wage structure as was recommended by the Manisana Singh Wage Board. To take care of the inflation and increase in the cost of living variable dearness allowance, is being paid which is linked to the All India Consumer Price Index for industrial workers. It will be prudent to merge the variable dearness allowance with the basic salaries and form suitable new pay scales. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL), New Delhi is currently paying wages as per the highest class i.e. IB The average wage of Peons is presently Rs.14,500/- p.m. plus perquisites & benefits. As it is, these wages are very high compared to the prevailing wages structure in other companies.
Now the new Wage Board has been constituted by Government & it has to revise the wages, its endeavour should be to fix wages scientifically considering the job content, job evaluations, workloads, productivity of labour and prevailing rate of wages in other organization. Newspaper industry cannot be an island of high wages just because Journalist & Other newspaper employees have to be pleased.
Bachhawat Wage Board and Manisana Wage Board, based their recommendations for the class of the wages to be paid to the Wage Board covered employees based on the turnover of the newspaper establishment. Further each branch of a company was classified based on the turnover of that particular branch office.
The turnover of an organization should not determine the wages to be paid to its employees. By this logic for doing the same job a person working in a larger organization should get higher wages vis-à-vis a small organization having less turn over. Thus, Govt. of India, which has the highest revenues should the highest salary paying organization in the country. In fact, employees working in large organization s may not have to work as much as compared to small organizations because large organizations have better and bigger automatic plants and also have well defined system and procedures. Persons working in smaller organizations may have to work more and require multifarious skills and talents than those working in the large organizations, but still get paid less because the person is working in an organization which has less turn over.
Similarly, the criterion for determining the wages should not be the profitability of the organization, because profitability depends upon so many factors like market share, quality of goods produced, brand image, efficiency and effectiveness of distribution methods, quality of management and govt. rules and regulations. It will be unfair for employees working in a loss making organization to get paid lower wages viz-a-vis an organization which is making better profits. In such a case, employees of perennially loss making organization like Air India, Indian Airlines etc. should get paid low salaries and employees of public sector organizations like BHEL and NTPC should get paid high salary as they are working in profit making companies.
The wages to be paid to the employees should be appropriately fixed, based on the job content of each job should be compared with the job content of other employees based on its complexities such as education, experience, skills and knowledge required. The compensation or wages should be related to the capabilities required and complexities of the job that he or she is performing. The complexities of the job have to be measured in terms of attributes and the qualities the person should possess to perform that particular job. This will include:-
1. Education level
2. Professional qualifications
3. Experience acquired
4. Special skills/job knowledge and competency
5. Responsibility level
6. Decision making/judgement
7. Creativity
In order to arrive at proper measurement of job knowledge, skills and competencies of each job for which the Wage Board wants to fix wages, the job content has to be properly defined and for each job title the job description has to be arrived at. For example, electricians in one organization may have different job description, duties and job responsibility than the electricians in another organization. In large organization there may be junior electricians, senior electricians and number of electrical engineers, whereas in a medium/small organization, electrician himself may be handling all aspects of the job including maintenance and repairs of major electrical equipment, and even attending to electrical system of printing machines. Thus only the word electrician may be misnomer unless the job description provides the details of the job, which a person is required to perform.
First job description has to be made ready for all jobs, which are required to be performed in a newspaper organization, for which wages are required to be fixed. Over a period of time as technologies have changed, many of the jobs and job titles have become obsolete and redundant. Many old employees may be still having those old job titles but they have been retained and totally re-equipped to perform other new jobs to meet the technological changes. Thus, their job title may not at all be in conformity with the jobs they are actually performing. Some of the examples of the old title in the printing press area are : Negative Retoucher, VDT Operator, Cameraman, Impositor, Line Operator, Black Room Asstt., Bromide Developer, Engraver, Flongman, Ludlo Operator, Mono Operator, Motor Mechanic, Layout man etc. Similarly, in the office category there will be persons having designations like Franking machine operators, addressographer, teleprinter, telex operator, comptist etc. which are no longer relevant as these jobs have become redundant.
With the change in technology and innovations and technological developments, new kinds of jobs have emerged which are not part and parcel of the old designations as mentioned in the earlier wage board reports.
The job contents of the journalists have also undergone considerable change with the advent of internet, email, mobile telephony7 and digital page making. The qualifications and expertise required for journalists now are different than what they were earlier. Journalist have now access to lots of information on internet. All background stories, data and information on any event are available to them on press of a button. They have not even to bother for spellings and grammar as these are automatically corrected by the computer systems. Page make u0p is also on the computer screens and for all the activities involved in their work, special computers and associated software have been developed. Thus skill required for journalist is now different. For these journalist jobs also, the Wage Board should prepare job descriptions for different categories of employees and fix wages based on job knowledge, skills, complexities, responsibilities, creativity and decision making required.
Some jobs have been wrongly categorized by past Wage Boards as journalists, because there are no job descriptions defining job content. Earlier Wage Boards had categorized proof readers, reference assistants and library assistants as journalists. The last Manisana Singh Wage Board categorized scanner operators and planners as journalists, even though scanner operators and planners have nothing remotely to do with the activities that journalists are required to perform. This Wage Board is expected to receive many representations from workmen to categorize them as journalists because journalists are required to work for six hours vis-à-vis eight hours by others and also get better wages and allowances.
All over India employees are required to work for 48 hours a week under the Provisions of Factories Act; and under the Provisions of Shops and Establishment Act. Due to some strange reasons under The Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and miscellaneous Provisions Act the working hours of journalists have been specified six hours per day or thirty six hours per week. This means that journalists work 25% less than all other employees in the organization. Either the working hours for journalists should be made at par with other employees or they should get wages 25% less than what they should normally have been allowed.
Once the job descriptions for each job, have been prepared by the Wage Board then based on the knowledge competence and skills, these jobs have to be compared and benchmarked against the similar or same jobs in the newspaper industry and in other industries in the country.
Once these comparisons have been done then only one can scientifically arrive at the worth of each job in the organization and how much compensation needs to be paid, based on the market valuation and contribution of the job to the overall functioning of the organization. Wage Board should consider the concept of CTC i.e. cost to the company while fixing the wages and allowances as is the practice world over. Another important aspect to be considered while fixing the wages for Wage Board covered employees is that job security of these categories of employees is ensured through Industrial Disputes Act. Also the amenities, working conditions and work environment provided by the company to these employees should also be a criteria while determining the wages. The Wage Board should also incorporate performance based payment system whereby good performance is rewarded and bad performance is penalized.
Merely paying an employee by his designation, based on the turnover of the company or the profitability of the company, is totally unscientific and irrational.
It may be mentioned that some major Newspaper Establishments either do not have Wage Board covered employees at all or have managed to get rid of Wage Board covered employees from their organizations. Many other newspaper establishments implement Wage Board award only symbolically. BCCL employs substantial number of Wage Board covered employees and implements Wage Board awards in toto. It is expected that Wage Board will revise the wages in the logical and rational manner, so that the wage burden does not increase disproportionately. Also to avoid any legal wrangling and disputes, the Wage Board must adopt scientific methods of job evaluation and wage fixation so that the newspaper organizations employing Wage Board covered employees accept recommendations and implement the award. If the wages are increased indiscriminately and without any scientific basis, the managements of various newspaper establishments will not only challenge these recommendations legally but may also make attempt to avoid implementation and find ways and mean to reduce/eliminate the Wage Board category of employees from their organizations.
We assure you of our best cooperation.
Thanking you,
For & On Behalf of Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
Sd-
(BALRAJ ARORA)
Dy. Director – Personnel &
Publisher – The Times of India & The Economic Times, New Delhi.
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