Tariq Usmani,
President Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ)
All media houses, earning billions of rupees annually from the national treasury and public taxes, are blatantly violating national laws. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, provincial information departments, and government machinery have utterly failed to enforce laws on media houses. At present, all media houses in Pakistan have practically turned into forced labor camps.
A recent survey report by the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists has revealed a shocking and disgraceful situation: in all media houses of the twin cities, journalists, media workers, and other staff receive their salaries with delays every month. Not a single media house pays on the 1st of the month. A never-ending cycle of forced dismissals of media employees continues, staff are being compelled to work 10 to 15 hours continuously, and despite crushing inflation, not a single institution is implementing the government’s minimum wage law of Rs. 37,500 per month. As a result, all media houses have effectively been turned into forced labor camps.
This situation is not limited to the twin cities but is even worse across Pakistan. At the town, tehsil, and district level, media house representatives, reporters, and bureau chiefs have, for decades, been forced to work without pay. This has tarnished the sacred profession of journalism and opened the door to heinous crimes like blackmail. Such exploitative media houses have emerged as an organized mafia that, on one hand, blackmails governments to extract billions of rupees in advertisements and perks annually, while on the other hand, adopts cruel practices against their own employees, disregarding all government rules and regulations. They not only mock the laws made for employees but also shred them to pieces, proving themselves to be an unchecked mafia.
On the written complaint of RIUJ President Tariq Usmani, in October 2024 the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) directed all licensed media house owners to improve salary and service payments, ensure timely salaries to employees, and establish firm principles and rules in this regard. Sadly, neither media owners complied with these instructions nor did PEMRA succeed in enforcing them. Under Clause 5 of the PEMRA Ordinance 2002 (Amendment Act 2023), all licensed TV channels are legally bound to pay their employees on time and to strictly implement the law regarding the minimum wage.
Clear PEMRA regulations exist to prevent salary delays and to ensure minimum wage payments, and for this purpose the PEMRA Council of Complaints forum is available. It is important to mention here that in February 2025, RIUJ again appealed to the PEMRA authority, stating that media owners were ignoring PEMRA’s rules and regulations, and demanded that they be bound to obey laws regarding employees. In response, PEMRA again issued instructions in February 2025 for timely salary payments, an end to forced dismissals, and the mandatory enforcement of the Ministry of Information’s Standing Committee directive to pay the minimum wage of Rs. 37,500. Unfortunately, media house owners are still not implementing these instructions at all.
RIUJ’s latest survey has revealed this disgraceful fact: even in today’s dire circumstances, media workers are being paid as little as Rs. 12,000, 18,000, 22,000, 23,000, 25,000, and 26,000 — which is a serious violation of the minimum wage law.
What is urgently required is for Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Minister of Information Ata Tarar, the Chairman of PEMRA, and all concerned institutions to take strict notice of this situation and enforce national laws in media houses. The state business being showered upon media institutions in the form of advertisements from the national treasury should be made conditional upon protecting workers’ jobs, ensuring timely payment of salaries, and implementing the basic minimum wage law. Any institution that fails to comply should have its business shut down and its license revoked, so that these forced labor camps disguised as media houses can be eliminated once and for all.
