Ad-Dustour employees to receive overdue salaries — vice chairman

AMMAN — Ad-Dustour journalists on Wednesday staged a sit-in outside the daily’s premises, demanding that their unpaid salaries for several months be disbursed. 

Protesting journalists also expressed their rejection of any restructuring plan for the country’s oldest Arabic daily at their expense, calling at the same time for a lasting solution to the newspaper’s accumulated financial woes.

In a statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, Ad-Dustour Editor-in-Chief Mohammad Tal stressed that any solution to the newspaper’s problems should not be at the expense of the “powerless” staff.

Rejecting the restructuring of the newspaper, Tal called for injecting liquidity into the daily to resolve its years-long financial woes.

During a meeting with lawmakers, vice chairman of the newspaper’s board Azzam Hneidi said workers’ salaries for January will be paid as of Wednesday while February’s wages will be paid before the end of April, Petra reported.

Hneidi told members of the Lower House’s follow-up committee on the situation of print media that “Ad-Dustour will fully recover and resolve its financial crisis by the end of this year on the basis of administrative solutions already in place,” according to Petra.

Established in 1967, the paper currently employs 320 staff members.

Deputy Zakariya Sheikh, who chaired the meeting, said efforts exerted recently will reflect positively on newspapers’ revenues and reduce expenditures, noting that these efforts will be announced soon, according to Petra.

He said all involved parties should commit to the Lower House’s recommendations to resolve the print media crisis.

The House has recently approved its National Guidance Committee’s recommendations on alleviating newspapers’ financial woes.

As a major recommendation, the panel called on the government to save print media from “collapse” by including in its media strategy an item that seeks to reduce the operational cost of newspapers.

The panel also called on the government to establish a “savings fund” for print media outlets with the aim of securing cash flows to cover newspapers’ urgent needs and the salaries of their staff.

The committee also called on the government to exempt newspapers for two years from taxes imposed on their imports of production input, including paper and ink, as well as the sales tax.

It also recommended that the appointment of newspapers’ boards of directors be based on high qualifications and solid experience in running media businesses.