Media persons protest job losses amid Covid-19 crisis

Chandigarh, sunita shastri: Journalists as well as non-journalist employees from Chandigarh today protested retrenchments in media industry amid Covid-19 crisis.Jgtar singh sidhu, a. s. prashar,sarabjit pandher, Tarlochan singh, nalin archaya, dr joginder sing, jaswant s. rana , dr sunita shastri,anil  bhardaj, jitender awasthi, rajkumar srivastva, vinod kohli, ashok malik, naveen Sharma Around 50 media persons from various unions –the tribune employees union, national union off journalists –india , chd pbunion off journalists, Indian express empl, u.n.i. employeesunion, national media confederationgathered at Sector 17 Plaza carrying playcards and raised slogans.Later, they submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister through governor of Punjab, who also is administrator of Chandigarh UT, urging to direct labour department to intervene and immediately stop retrenchments in media industry. They have also urged to provide some economic relief to those media houses which have not retrenched any employees or were ready to take back laid-off employees.The media industry and especially print media has been affected badly by losing advertisment as well as circulation revenue due to Covid-19 crisis and resultant lockdown. From April itself media houses across the country began to send their employees on furlogh, announced salary-cuts, retrenched employees or pressurised them to resgine, suspending printing and suspended editions.