New Delhi: The Press Trust of India (PTI) management’s decision to lay off 297 staffers has not gone down well with the organisation’s employees’ federation and other unions of journalists, who have demanded the immediate rescinding of the order and have threatened to protest if this demand is not met.
Soon after the decision to lay off the staffers was taken by the PTI management on September 29, the Federation of PTI Employees Union wrote a letter to the chief executive officer of the organisation, Venky Venkatesh, to protest the “illegal retrenchment of about 300 PTI employees throughout India”.
In the letter, sent on September 29, the Federation’s general secretary Balram Singh Dahiya wrote on behalf of the employees that they “strongly protest the PTI management’s unilateral and unprovoked decision to illegally retrench 297 PTI employees all over India today”.
The Federation demanded that this “illegal retrenchment be withdrawn with immediate effect”.
It also stated that day-long gate meetings and dharnas would be organised at all PTI centres from 10 am to 6 pm on October 1 “till the illegal retrenchment orders are rescinded”.
The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) has also taken “strong objection to the arbitrary retrenchment of 297 permanent employees by the management of the Press Trust of India”.
In a statement issued by its president S.K. Pande and general secretary Sujata Madhok, the Union said “the management has chosen to suddenly throw out staffers who have spent long years building up the country’s premier news agency and taking it to new heights”.
“They have been summarily thrown out by putting up a list of names at the PTI office,” the DUJ said, adding that “letters have, reportedly, been sent to homes and, according to the management’s claims, dues have been directly transferred to individual bank accounts.”
Criticising this move by the PTI management, the DUJ has demanded that the decision be be revoked at the earliest. It also exhorted the Union Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to “step in at this juncture to stop these anti-labour and anti-media moves”.
The DUJ also called for journalists within and outside PTI to come together and “show solidarity” with the “victimised colleagues in the PTI”. “We call upon all PTI employees to unite in solidarity and resist the retrenchment,” it said, urging “the wider community of media persons, both journalists and non-journalists” to also express solidarity with those impacted by the move.