The second day of the 31st IFJ World Congress being held in Oman looked at various aspects of journalists at the workplace, from harassment to gender pay equality
The Congress being attended by journalists from across the globe, focused on IFJ’s policy on harass-ment and went onto presidium and committees, followed by the report of the general secretary.
Journalists discussed how the pandemic has im-pacted journalists in their way of working, and said there should be better remuneration for journalists who are working from home. They also pointed out that the pandemic has affected incomes.
“Worldwide, we see working conditions of journalists are going down, especially for women. The home office is really a step back because they have to cover childcare, home and work altogether. Eventually, their working time is reduced and, ac-cordingly lose their monthly income as well as pen-sion. So we are requesting better social conditions for women’’, said Renate Gensch, Ver.di, Germany.
In her presentation, Sian Jones, National Union of Journalists, UK and Ireland, addressed equal pay and understanding the gender pay gap for women at work places in the UK. She said women work for two months free. She said the successful outcome of the case of Samira Ahmed had opened the door for hundreds of other women.
“This is an important Congress for us to come together with journalists and media workers, so we are able to share experiences working in different environments across the globe where some places are dangerous to work. In the session here, I have been talking about equal pay, where in the UK, women are paid less compared to men, on average, two months less each year. As a trade union, we want to tackle this, and we have had a successful development where we won the case of our member, Samir Ahmed, in 2020 with BBC. It was successful for her as an individual, but it also meant we could open doors for equal pay in other cases, both in BBC and other media places in the UK. —AFP
