KARACHI: A One-Day training workshop for the Capacity Building of PFUJ Office Bearers, FEC and BDM members and office bearers of affiliated unions was held at the conference room of Karachi Union of journalists.
PFUJ conducted the workshop with the collaboration of International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The workshop was a part of a series of workshops which will be conducted across Pakistan to strengthen the PFUJ as an institute, build the capacity of the leadership of PFUJ, its affiliated unions, leaders and workers and inform them about PFUJ Constitution and other labour laws which guarantee their jobs and help them find a decent employment under ILO’s decent work agenda.
Sheher Bano, Vice President of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, was the lead trainer of this workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to strengthen the PFUJ as an institute and prepare it to generate more opportunities to achieve its objectives, build the capacity of its leadership by briefing about its constitution, rules and responsibilities of its leadership and also give a review of the PFUJ constitution, to inculcate a sense of Strategic Future Planning among the leadership and workers, build a better coordination mechanism, and give a brief outline of the review of Pakistan’s labour laws, which was done by Institute for Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA), Islamabad Pakistan.
The workshop was divided in four interactive sessions. In the first session participants were given the review of the PFUJ constitution, its formation, amendments done at various points in time with a special focus on the amendments done in 2018 in which women participation was increased in the PFUJ and its affiliated unions. Other topics covered were organizational structure, objectives of PFUJ, code of conduct, types of membership, rights of members, Formation, election, and power of FEC, collection of funds, subscription, subvention fee etc.
In the second session, the PFUJ review done by Prof Nadia Sabir, from NED, was discussed, in detail where her recommendations were discussed and accepted or rejected accordingly by the participants. Dr Nadia in her review had suggested to bringing the defined roles of VP and Asst secretaries’ of PFUJ and UJs and also five-member core committee in writing.
This suggestion was accepted, but her suggestion to give honorary membership to the experts of labor law etc was not accepted. Similarly, her suggestion to form A Special Journalism Field Labor Force Authority and creating job quota for this force was also not accepted as journalists always fight against quota system.
In the 3rd session participants were given a briefing on the IFJ Review of the PFUJ Constitution which was done by Mr Jonathan Mill, Consultant to the IFJ. Most of the recommendations given by him were accepted by the participants. For example, his suggestion to reduce the long preface of the PFUJ and also reduce the long objectives of the PFUJ to only five realistic and achievable objectives was accepted.
He suggested to adding two objectives relating to the principal of press freedom and editorial independence and on the safety of journalists and media workers in the first three objectives, making the total of 5. This was also readily accepted. His suggestion to do SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, and Time bound) analysis of all the issues and future plans was also accepted.
The last session dealt with the SWOT analysis of the relationships of unions with various stake holders. All the participants did the SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of their past actions, activities, events and future strategies. The analysis helped participants to do strategic planning and also make realistic action plans for their future engagements, with their members, potential members, regional unions, employers and government.
“PFUJ and KUJ are planning to increase membership of the unions by engaging with more journalists, bringing back those who quit their Ujs. PFUJ also has plans for the overall welfare of its members, Recently it has done Health insurance and issued health cards to its members. The facility will be extended to regional union members and later to the families of their workers,“ explained GM Jamali, President PFUJ, who was also one of the participants of the training workshop.
Former President KUJ, Hasan Abbas, while thanking the trainer Sheher Bano and participants for their active participation, informed them that they are devising plans to engage with youth and young journalists who have just joined the media or are in the process of joining it. In the end the lead trainer Sheher Bano vowed to continue to conducting the training sessions in other small towns and cities of Province of Sindh, where PFUJ has its presence through its Sindh Chapter, which is headed by VP, PFUJ, Saeed Jan Baloch. The very interactive training session ended in the evening.
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