Mir Shakil announces to regularise contractual employees
By our correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Editor in Chief Jang/The News Mir Shakil ur Rehman announced on Sunday he would consider regularising those employees of the Jang Group who were working on contractual basis. He said he had changed his mind on this issue. He also promised to persuade other newspaper owners withdraw an inter-court appeal against the implementation of the wage board award. If they did not agree, he himself would do so, he added.
In what turned out to be a standing ovation, Mir Shakil also announced that he would setup a welfare scheme for the journalists throughout the country but asked them to end their internal differences and forge unity among their ranks.
He made the announcement of regularising the Jang Group employees at the Rawalpindi Press Club on Sunday afternoon, where he had been invited by different journalist bodies. All the working journalists stood in their seats, clapped hands and raised slogans for the Jang Group as Mir Shakil ur Rehman made the historic announcement.
He said he had been in favour of employing people on contract but "now I am a changed person because the circumstances are entirely different from what they used to be in the old times." There must be a change in the contractual system, he said and added: "I was wrong in my approach in this regard though I was correct in many other areas."
He said he would talk to other newspaper owners and proprietors and try to convince them to withdraw the appeal against the implementation of the wage board award. Even if they don't agree, I would unilaterally do so to implement the wage board award in all the publications of the Jang Group," he said.
The Editor in Chief of Jang/The News said he had thought of launching a welfare scheme not for the journalists of Jang Group alone but for all in the country. But he urged that they must forge unity in their ranks first to benefit from this scheme.