After a month – March – which was taken up with a mixture of being on strike and ‘paused’ at the suggestion of my editor the news finally came thro – your dues have been deposited. Long experience of working in Pakistan meant that I was not jumping for joy. Cheques can bounce – and do. And I had no pay slip either so I did not know how much had been deposited, so I waited a couple of days to give any cheque a chance to clear then went in this morning to see the state of play.
Oh dear. Currently I am owed three months arrears totaling about 320,000 rupees (1,748 GBP). I claim via an invoice submitted monthly. December, January and February are now in arrears.
Bad as my situation is it is not as bad as many, probably hundreds, of my fellow contributors to assorted newspapers and magazines in Pakistan. Some senior staffers at The News have not been paid since last summer. I believe nobody at ‘The Nation’ has been paid for months. There have been widespread job losses across the print media in the last year and salaries have been cut, in some instances by 40%. Things have got worse under the PTI government as it is not spending as much on advertising as its predecessors and the media houses had long stayed fat on government spending, their business models heavily dependent on it.
Many that I know of continue to work despite not being paid, the logic being that a job is a job and they have a contract saying so, even if it is unpaid. They cling on in the hope of payment. Freelancers are hung out to dry. They have no contract, nothing is ever in writing, there is no effective unionisation and the media houses are more than happy for this state of affairs to continue, preferably indefinitely. The very last thing they want is to be held accountable. There are few – Dawn being an exception – that would be willing to come clean with their employees or contributors. Silence is their first and last port of call. Say nothing, admit nothing. Never apologise. Don’t give interviews.
Thus the media houses – none of them exactly impoverished – continue their exploitative ways secure in the knowledge that that have a captive herd of sheep as contributors. Copy continues to flow in and get published. The circle is unbroken.
I got a third of my dues and now have to battle yet again for the rest of my earnings. In idle moments I have mused about going to law, sueing the buggers, but unless there is a sharp lawyer who will to work for expenses only that road is closed. I resume work on Monday, 1st April, coincidentally All Fools Day. Watch this space.
Thunksforthinkers 