HARARE - The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) will fully assist Wellington Toni, a sports editor with the state-owned Sunday News, who was last week fired on allegations of posting comments to Zimeye website.ZUJ secretary General, Forster Dongozi, said in an exclusive one on one interview in Harare at the weekend that they were going to engage a lawyer to challenge Toni’s dismissal.
There have been reports that ZUJ was not willing to represent Toni despite him being a full paid up member of the union.
“As the trade union, that has been our mandate of representing our members and we do not know where all this is coming from. In fact the said journalist has not approached the union to present his case, but that will stop us from taking up his case, said Dongozi.
“It’s unfair to say that the union discriminates members. It must be put on record that most of the members who ZUJ has given legal labour case representation are from the state media. The state media has a lot of journalists and media workers who were victimized and ZUJ has represented them,” said Dongozi.
Dongozi said the union might have financial problem, but it had other means of assisting sacked members.
Documents available revealed that the decision to fire Toni was made after a hearing committee recommended his dismissal to the board.
Toni is the second line editor to be fired by the company recently. The editor of Umthunywa, a weekly vernacular newspaper published by the same company, was dismissed allegedly for using a picture showing a woman being carried to a clinic in a wheel barrow.
Dongozi warned journalist to desist from trying to strike deals with employers when they have been accused of committing a disciplinary offence.
“We are having a serious problem from senior state media journalists who approach the union after having stricken deals with employers who would have then crooked them,” added Dongozi.
Efforts to interview Toni were fruitless as he was said to have gone to Kenya on personal business.
Post published in: Politics