Khaleeq Kiani criticses Dawn management for not reversing pay cuts

A senior reporter of one of the leading English newspapers in Pakistan, Dawn, Khaleeq Kiani has criticised the daily’s management for not reversing its employees’ pay cuts.

The Dawn’s senior correspondent Khaleeq Kiani expressed his resentment on Twitter, saying, “Dawn is yet to reverse 30% pay cut imposed in January 2019 while CPI [Consumer Price Index] went up by over 30% in these three years.”

#Dawn is yet to reverse 30% paycut imposed in January 2019 while #CPI went up by over 30% in these three years. https://t.co/W2S9TCs7Do

— Khaleeq Kiani (@KhaleeqKiani) February 10, 2022

His tweet came after he posted a Dawn story’s link regarding the increase in 15pc disparity allowance for the government employees.

Prior to Kiani’s tweet, the journalists and media workers of one of the leading English daily, Dawn newspaper, had demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan take notice against the management for unending pay-cut despite collecting ‘handsome profit’ in the fiscal year 2020-21.

The Dawn newspaper employees association had appealed to PM Imran Khan via an open letter to draw his ‘attention to the plight of journalists and media workers in the country’s most prestigious newspaper, founded by the Father of the Nation [Muhammad Ali Jinnah] him.’

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They wrote, “First, the Dawn management cut employees’ salaries by up to 35 per cent in February 2019 on the pretext of “anticipated losses”. Our appeals to the management to reverse the drastic pay-cut have fallen on deaf ears, despite the company’s handsome profit in the fiscal year 2020-21.”

It added, “Secondly, a truncated 8th Wage Board Award, in August 2021, was “implemented” in a lopsided manner – after a gap of 19 years. It, ironically, further contracted the employees’ salary instead of raising it by 145 per cent, as required under the WBA.”

The journalists and media workers of Dawn newspaper requested the premier to ask the English daily’s management via a phone call to reverse the unlawful pay-cut, pay arrears and increase the salaries of the employees. The workers said that they hoped that their management will also listen to the premier’s advice just like ARY News and Serene Air.

Dear @ImranKhanPTI @PakPMO, taking heart from your thoughtful gesture towards employees of private firms, we draw your attention to the plight of media workers at newspaper, which refuses to reverse up to 40% pay-cut effective Feb 2019.1/2 @fawadchaudhry @shabazgil @OfficialKUJ pic.twitter.com/D86JKkk5JK

— Pakistan Herald Workers’ Union (@herald_union) January 30, 2022

Earlier in January, Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had censured the media houses’ owners for not hiking salaries of the working journalists despite witnessing an increase in profits up to 35 to 40 per cent.

Fawad Chaudhry had made the statement while addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Sunday in which he distributed Sehat Cards among journalists and felicitated them on achieving this reward.

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He had said that due to profit earning, the media owners and companies should increase the salaries of their workers. “Today our industries are fully functional, the farmer is prosperous as Rs 1100 billion has been transferred to the agriculture sector and the economy is growing at a rate of 5 per cent,” said Chaudhry Fawad Hussain.

He had acknowledged that there were problems for the salaried class and the private sector should play its role to resolve these problems. “Prosperity of working journalists is necessary, we have to work for it,” he said.