PTI Retrenches Close to 300 Employees in a Single Day

New Delhi: A stone's throw away from the Union Labour Ministry, the Press Trust of India, (PTI), the country's leading news agency, has retrenched 297 employees countrywide on Saturday, an act termed as "illegal" and in violation of labour laws by the employees' union and various journalists organisations.

 

On Monday, the PTI employees union and other journalists organisations held a day-long dharna in front of  PTI centres across the country, including the headquarters on Parliament Street in Delhi, protesting the "illegal" retrenchment of about 300 employees.

 

In a statement, Balram Singh Dahiya, General Secretary of the Federation of PTI Employees, criticised the PTI managements "unilateral and unprovoked" decision to retrench 297 non-journalist staff across India.

 

The Delhi Union of Journalists, seeking immediate revocation of the order, urged the Labour Ministry and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to "step in and stop these anti-labour and anti-media moves.".

 

"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. Letters have, reportedly, been sent to homes and, according to the management’s claims, dues have been directly transferred to individual bank accounts," said a statement by DUJ President SK Pande and Secretary Sujata Madhok.  

 

Many journalists took part in the day-long dharna in front of the PTI office, with some of them even condemning the "harsh" and "inhumane" language used by the PTI management in the retrenchment order of September 29, signed by MR Mishra, Chief Administrative Officer.

 

"The following employees whose names appear in the list displayed with this notice have been retrenched from the employment of the Press Trust of India with immediate effect. Retrenchment letters are sent to each individual by registered post and the entire amount as detailed in the retrenchment letter is transferred in their bank accounts," says the notice.

 

Some employees said they were pained by the insensitive manner in which the long-term employees of the premier news agency have been handled, as is clear by the concluding sentence which says: "Scanned copy of the retrenchment letter is also placed at the desk of each individual whose name appears in the displayed list...".

 

As per a report in National Herald, PTI insiders said that the management had been planning to execute a voluntary retirement scheme for non-journlalist employees, for which an internal communication had been sent.

 

"However, seeing the communication going unheeded, the management ordered a bloodbath of 297 staff in a single day," said the report quoting a journalist working with the agency.

 

According to sources, all but 52 of the news agency's non-journalist staff have been terminated. The management has also come out with a 678-page document "explaining" its decision to sack about 300 employees.

 

"The last major innovation was done in the year 2000. Hence, for now almost 20 years,  although there has been hardly any work for persons in the transmission, engineering and attender departments, PTI has tried its level best to continue them on its rolls. But unfortunately, it is no longer financially viable to do so as PTI's survival is at stake", according to the management's explanation.

 

PTI, India's topmost news agency,  is run by an elected board of directors consisting of the country's top media house owners.

 

Its chairman is N. Ravi, Publisher and former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, Vice-Chairman is Vijay Kumar Chopra, Chief Editor of the Punjab Kesari Group of newspapers. The other members of its board include Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of the Express Group, Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran), K.N. Shanth Kumar (Deccan Herald), Vineet Jain (Times of India), Riyad Mathew (Malayalam Manorama), Aveek Kumar Sarkar (Anand Bazar Patrika), M.P. Veerendra Kumar (Mathrubhumi), R. Lakshmipathy (Dinamalar), Hormusji N. Cama (Bombay Samachar), Justice R.C. Lahoti, Deepak Nayyar, Shyam Saran and J.F. Pochkhanawalla.