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In this health crisis, we recognise that doctors, other health care workers, the police are at the forefront and are doing their jobs relentlessly to ensure that the COVID19 disease is contained. While most offices, private as well as public, have told their employees to work from home, there are some jobs that cannot afford that privilege due to the nature of their jobs. People in banking sector, people engaged in essential services related to water supply, power supply, sanitation, telecom sector, need to be at work despite of the lockdown.
We read all about COVID19 in the news and are in the know how of latest updates because of the news that reaches us every minute of the day. Which means, journalists, cameramen, photographers, Outdoor Broadcasting (OB) van engineers, producers, studio crew etc. are also going to work every day, risking their lives so that information can reach the public. Most journalists are required to go out on the field to collect legitimate information, get quotes from authorities, go to hospitals or containment zones to give real time and credible news. This exposes them to the disease and they stand at a high risk of contacting it.
Their fears have become reality as many journalists in Mumbai as well as at a news channel in Tamil Nadu tested positive after a sampling test was done. Other states like Delhi are going to follow suit and test field journalists for COVID19.
On April 21, it was reported that at least 25 people working in a news channel in Chennai, which includes journalists, tested positive for COVID19. TV news journalists have it the worst during this lockdown as they have to go outdoors and report news to keep the 24/7 news churning. This is done by news channels allegedly in complete disregard of the safety and health of their employees.
Few days ago 53 Mumbai journalists out of 167 samples tested, turned out to be positive for COVID19 and most of them say they are left with no choice by their employers but to go on field while the work is manageable even from home. The apathy of news channel owners and editors is apparent through journalists’ accounts who say they are being sent out without proper safety equipment.
Those journalists and other employees in the news media who have tested positive are yet to complete their journey to recovery. Are the news media houses, who have been sending them on the field in utter disregard of their safety not liable? They certainly are.
In India there is a special law for journalists called ‘The Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions Of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955’. While this law mostly looks at minimum wages, holidays, gratuity for journalists and allied jobs, it is the Employees Compensation Act, 1923 (ECA) that takes care of liability of the employer for injury caused during the course of employment.
The Schedule II of the ECA includes persons employed in any newspaper establishment as defined in the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 and engaged in outdoor work under the definition of employees under section 2(1)(DD) of the Act. Section 3 of the Act deals with the liability of the employer for compensation to the employee for personal injury caused by accident arising out of and in course of employment.
The employer is however only liable thus, if the partial disablement of the employees lasts for more than 3 days. There are many other exceptions to this rule but not all are relevant in this case. Section 4 deals with amount of compensation that shall be paid by the employer and a lot of factors come into play, such as the nature of disability of the employee, age, loss of earning capacity. The compensation is to be claimed by the employee from the employer and delay in payment makes the employer liable for payment of arrears as well as interest and additionally, 50% of the sum to be paid as compensation.
Since contacting COVID19, can for now, be termed as temporary disablement, as per the Act, 25% of monthly wage is to be paid to the employee and in case this results in death, 50% of monthly wages multiplied by ‘relevant factor’ (it is a number relative to the age of the persons provide in Schedule III of the Act) or Rs. 1,20,000, whichever is more shall be paid by the employer.
The employer can dispute the compensation claimed on the ground that the disease has not been contacted ‘during the course of employment’ since the risk of contracting COVID19 can also be when the employee is traveling or in his residential premises. That’s is a matter of dispute to be decided by the courts but once the factum of injury caused during course of employment is established or accepted by the employer, the employee becomes eligible for compensation for the risk they take in reporting news from the frontlines of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has sent out the following circular to various print and electronic media houses. But even here asking journalists on the field to “take precautions” appears to place the burden of responsibility upon them. Even asking media houses to “take care” of their field and office staff sounds vague, suggesting that the circular was issued just as a formality.
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