Freedom From Repression

AT A TIME when much has been made of the assault on press freedom by corporate ownership of media, I have come to believe through my own experience that the actual exercise of legal protections already available to print journalists is one of the chief means by which the arbitrary exercise of power by corporate owners can be rolled back. The perceived ability of owners to hire or fire without legal restraint is the primary reason that many journalists today modulate their views to accord not with their own convictions, or with the stated editorial line of the organisations they work for, but with whatever suits the needs of owners at a given moment.

Unfortunately, most print journalists remain unaware of the extent of protection available to them under the law. This lack of awareness of their rights has much to do with the recent history of the media. In 1995, when I was first offered a job at the Times of India, I signed a contract with the paper’s owner, Bennett, Coleman & Company. I was not given the option of joining as a wage-board journalist. The term designated those hired under an older regime, in which being a journalist was much like being a civil servant: the job came with fixed hours, and pay grades, determined by a government-mandated wage board, that were based on seniority. These conditions were set by the Working Journalist Act, 1955, which had been enacted by Parliament for the editorial staff of print organisations. My fellow hires and I took it for granted that, since we were being paid better wages than we would have gotten under the wage board, we would not enjoy the job security it provided.

The Times of India pioneered the transition from the wage-board to the contract regime. Initially, employees were given a choice, and higher wages were used to lure them to the new system. By the time I joined, there was no option: a contract was given to me that I was in no position to negotiate. Other employers followed suit, and this is now standard practice across much of the industry. Most journalists have come to believe, like I did, that we are all liable to be fired at the whim of our employers at a month’s or three months’ notice, depending upon the contract that was handed to us when we joined.

This is an illusion that I lived with for eighteen years, until I was told by a subsequent employer, the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, that I should leave Open magazine under mutually acceptable circumstances. It was a suggestion I did not take up. It was only when it became clear that the management would fire me if I did not accept a sum of money they were offering me and move on that I began examining what rights, if any, journalists enjoy under the law. I eventually discovered that, as a print journalist, the Working Journalists Act still applied to me.

The first advice that came my way was that I could legally challenge the validity of my contract on the grounds that it was unfair, because it was not a contract between equals. According to this argument, the challenge would be based on the reality that most employees had no room to negotiate the majority of contract clauses, as was evident from the fact that a standard form of contract had been signed by all my fellow employees at the magazine. I think this is an argument that needs to be tested in court by television and online journalists, who are not protected by the Working Journalists Act.

Examining my options further, I found to my surprise—and my naivety is emblematic of most journalists, who have given little thought to their working conditions—that a contract in no way left me bereft of the protection of the Working Journalists Act. Under clause 16, ‘Effect of laws and agreements inconsistent with this Act,’ it states, “The provisions of this Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith contained in any other law or in the terms of any award, agreement or contract of service, whether made before or after the commencement of this Act.” Furthermore:

Provided that where under any such award, agreement, contact of service or otherwise a newspaper employee is entitled to benefits in respect of any matter which are more favourable to him than those to which he would be entitled under this Act, the newspaper employee shall continue to be entitled to the more favourable benefits in respect of that matter, notwithstanding that he receives benefits in respect of other matters under this Act.

Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to preclude any newspaper employee from entering into an agreement with an employer for granting him rights or privileges in respect of any matter which are more favourable to him that those to which he would be entitled under this Act.

This clearly implies that every clause of the act applies to every print journalist working for a news organisation, irrespective of the nature of any contract that may define the terms of employment. A contract can only strengthen the clauses in the act, not weaken them.

This means that journalists can insist on certain rights granted to them because of the nature of their job. In 1958, the Express Group challenged the constitutional validity of the act, arguing among other things that by privileging a certain category of employees it violated Article 14 of the constitution, which addresses equality before the law. The Supreme Court struck down the argument, quoting the report of the Press Commission constituted by the government in 1952:

journalists are in a sense creative artists and the public rightly or, wrongly, expect from them a general omniscience and a capacity to express opinion on any topic that may arise, under the sun. Apart from the nature of their work the conditions under which that work is to be performed, are peculiar to this profession. Journalists have to work at very high pressure and as most of the papers come out in the morning, the journalists are required to work late in the night and round the clock. The edition must go to press by a particular time and all the news that breaks before that hour has got to find its place in that edition. Journalism thus becomes a highly specialized job and to handle it adequately a person should be well-read, have the ability to size up a situation and to arrive quickly at the correct conclusion, and have the capacity to stand the stress and strain of the work involved. His work cannot be measured, as in other industries, by the quantity of the output, for the quality of work is an essential element in measuring the capacity of the journalists. Moreover, insecurity of tenure is a peculiar feature of this profession. This is not to say that no insecurity exists in other professions but circumstances may arise in connection with the profession of journalism which may lead to unemployment in this profession, which would not necessarily have that result in other professions. Their security depends to some extent on the whims and caprices of the proprietors. We have come across cases where a change in the ownership of the paper or a change in the editorial policy of the paper has resulted in a considerable change in the editorial staff. In the case of other industries a change in the proprietorship does not normally entail a change in the staff. But as the essential purpose of a newspaper is not only to give news but to educate & guide public opinion, a change in the proprietorship or in the editorial policy of the paper may result and in some cases has resulted in a wholesale change of the staff on the editorial side. These circumstances, which are peculiar to journalism, must be borne in mind in framing any scheme for improvement of the conditions of working journalists.

In view of such considerations, the court ruled:

The working journalists are thus a group by themselves and could be classified as such apart from the other employees of newspaper establishments and if the Legislature embarked upon a legislation for the purpose of ameliorating their conditions of service there was nothing discriminatory about it. They could be singled out thus for preferential treatment against the other employees of newspaper establishments. A classification of this type could not come within the ban of Art. 14.

The very protections that most journalists believe do not exist for them are actually enshrined in an act whose basis has been accepted by the Supreme Court. The working hours, modes of dismissal, nature of gratuity and so forth have all been set out that no employer may violate through any contract or other terms of employment.

The act also lays down the means by which journalists can seek redress against employers. Working journalists enjoy all the rights that any workman has under the Industrial Disputes Act, or the equivalent law in any state, and can thus access labour courts set up to settle disputes between workers and employers. It is ironic that a number of journalists who believe in press freedom have written opinions on labour law without realising how the subjects are closely interlinked. Any changes in how labour disputes are handled impinge directly on our rights under the Working Journalists Act. Any dilution of the Industrial Disputes Act in favour of an employer is potentially also a weakening of the norms that could guarantee press freedom.

Understanding the roots of press freedom in this country can help us expand it. For print journalists, it is possible—and necessary—to use the Working Journalists Act and labour courts in a systematic manner to counter harassment by employers. The precedents set by a few such cases—even if they take time, even if they go all the way to the Supreme Court—will establish limits on the arbitrary exercise of power by owners. At the same time, we must seek to place journalists in any medium—print, television, internet or radio—under the purview of the Working Journalists Act. The clear intention of the press commission that recommended such an act was to provide protection to all those who are sources of news and opinion in our society. Extending the act won’t be easy—and there will be little point in trying, if print journalists, the very people who do enjoy protection under the law, will not first exercise the rights and freedoms they already have.