INS asks government to reject wageboard recommendations

The Wage Boards recommendations, if accepted by the government, would drive several newspaper establishments out of business, the INS said in a statement.

INS President Kundan Vyas said the Wage Board report was severely flawed and one-sided. The INS had held an emergency meeting yesterday in Mumbai to discuss the issue.

Vyas said the Wage Boards had been improperly constituted and the report had been prepared in breach of several rules and time-tested procedures."The present Wage Boards had submitted their report without prior consultations among members," he said.

He contended that the Wage Boards had exceeded their remit under the statute by suggesting measures that were manifestly beyond their scope and terms of reference.
The Boards had ignored settled principles to assess the capacity to pay, and had made no effort to assess the burden on the newspaper industry, Vyas said.

The Wage Boards had not even bothered to publish tentative proposals as was done by earlier wage determining authorities, to respect the principles of fair play and natural justice, he said.

Vyas said the existence of Wage Boards was out of tune with the times as even the National Commission on Labour had in 2002 recommended that there was no need for any wage board, statutory or otherwise, for fixing the wages for workers in any industry.