The employment council, which the union has mooted before, would, among other things, facilitate negotiations between media employers and workers for acceptable working conditions.
Currently, Zimbabwe has no media employment council. With the proposed media employment council in place, agreed salaries would be gazetted like the case in other industries.
“As ZUJ, we will engage relevant government ministers in this regard, as soon as they are appointed following the inauguration of President Robert Mugabe as Head of State today,” Dongozi told The Zimbabwean.
He said his union was already strategising on ways to engage government. ZUJ expects the Zanu (PF) government to have a cordial relationship with the media.
Dongozi said the criminalisation of journalists should be a thing of the past, since innocent journalists continued to suffer arbitrary arrests.
To free the working environment for journalists, ZUJ expects government to repeal restrictive media laws such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Public Order and Security Act.
There is hope that elected journalists coming in as members of parliament would help speed up freeing up of the current repressive media environment.
Journalists and their unions rallied behind fellow media workers contesting for legislative portfolios in the past election, hoping they would make a difference in parliament and push for media friendly laws.
Post published in: News