Striking workers at MIJ Radio face the chop

Workers at the Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) have been taken unawares by their management as the board has approved its request of retrenching some of the workers due to financial constraints.

This follows the strike the workers had recently demanding the pay hike to meet the high cost of living due to the devaluation of the kwacha.

According to one of the sources who opted for anonymity, that management exploded the bombshell on Friday afternoon by disclosing that come 1st September some of the workers will no longer be part of the institution due to the retrenchment already approved by the Board.

MIJ FM to carry out job cuts

“We have been told that the retrenchment will affect all the departments in order to meet the challenges the institution is facing financially. But we have also been told that the remaining ones will get a 15% salary increment a move we feel is unjustifiable,” the source lamented.

The workers asked management to reserve the 15% pay hike so that no one loses job but the request did not hold and workers feel they are being victimised for staging a strike.

According to the workers, MIJ management does not respect their rights as stipulated by the employer’s Act that each employee should be on the Pension Scheme.

“That issue is water under the bridge because it was sorted out and the organisation implemented the pension Scheme to all employees effect from last years and what is remaining is to work on the past years so that the workers should get the arrears on pension deductions,” Deus Sandram, a member of the Malawi Congress of Trade Union (MCTU) and one of the long serving members at MIJ told MANA on what he was doing to promote the welfare of the workers as a member of MCTU.

Efforts to talk to the Executive Director proved futile as she is outside the country for other duties.

MIJ is one of the competitive media institutions promoting and sensitizing the rights of people.

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