Salary Arrears: NLC President Laments Poor Condition Of Journalists

Joe Ajaero, President, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has berated media owners in the ountry for the poor remuneration of journalists.

The NLC leader said journalists welfare have been relegated to the background by some media entrepreneurs who do not care about their survival.

He noted that some media houses are owing their worker backlogs of salary which they have refused to pay, thereby worsening their economic conditions.

This must not continue, the no nonesence NLC president.

Ajaero made this known during a meeting with the Leadership of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, in Abuja the nation’s capital.

According to him, the umbrella body of workers in the country will work with the NUJ to ensure that the problem is tackled.

He said the NUJ has relaxed its role as the umbrella body of journalists in the country, adding that this must not be so, asking the Union rise up to the occasion of defending journalists.

“The NUJ is going backwards. They are slacking in the affairs of NLC and I am not afraid of saying this. They have allowed the Guild of Editors to be at the forefront,” Ajaero said.

“The Guild are the managers and they cannot protect the interest of reporters. I don’t mean to open a debate between journalists being professionals or employees. If you are claiming to be professionals, you are undermining yourselves because 90 per cent of your members earn a living through their employers.”
Why some media owners have deliberately impoverished journalists working for them by not paying their salaries, the economic situation in the country, according to experts has also dealt a serious blow to the business that was hitherto managing to survive.