The Kamoke Union of Journalists (KUJ)
Together we are stronger.

The Kamoke Union of Journalists (KUJ) was formed on November 02, 2021, in Kamoke. Kamoke Union of Journalists (KUJ) First President Name is Sheikh Basharat Ali and First General Secretary Name is Rana Muhammad Nasir. The KUJ has fought for journalists and journalism. Today, the union is one of the largest independent journalists' unions in the Kamoke Tehsil. KUJ Members work across the media, from newspapers, broadcasting and News Media websites.

 

  Issues   

  •         Future of Journalism  (Journalism is facing unprecedented challenges.)
The business model which sustained media for decades is collapsing in many parts of the world. Rapid technological change has both opened up exciting new opportunities for journalism but can also pose widespread threats to jobs, working conditions and quality journalism. Jobs, which were once well paid and secure, are increasingly being replaced with insecure, precarious work with wages so low many are forced to leave the profession.

Major news platforms like Facebook and Google rake in billions in profits but pay few taxes and produce no original news content.

Public service broadcasting, especially television – once the antidote to the excesses of profit-driven media –is increasingly starved of resources or faces severe political pressures to toe the government line.

Media concentration threatens pluralism and democracy by hampering the role of the watchdog which the media ought to play.The KUJ believes media is a public good - that media should serve the public interest not political agendas or corporate greed. We stand - whatever the platform - for quality journalism and for journalists to have access to the resources they need, including training, to properly fulfill their functions.

We do not believe journalists can resist the future but they must have a voice in shaping it.

The KUJ is working to:

  • Carry out research into alternative models of financing journalism
  • Lobby to defend public service broadcasting
  • Campaign for quality journalism in the public interest
  • Help unions and associations to secure a just transition from legacy media to digital
  • Stand up for fair pay and decent conditions in digital media
  • Demand social media platforms pay their fair share and help fund content creation
  • Advocate for media policies which put the public interest at the heart of journalism
  • Fight against media concentration

 

  •  Gender Equality 
The KUJ puts the fight for gender equality at the heart of its work and campaigns

Our Santander Declaration – a programme to fight for equality in the workplace and beyond - highlights key issues for our affiliates.

  • The violence and harassment faced by women journalists across the world. KUJ statistics demonstrate that at least 1 in every 2 journalists have suffered sexual harassment, psychological abuse, online trolling and other forms of human rights abuses.
  • The gender pay gap, which is a reality in every continent, and which not only affects women throughout their working lives but in retirement too.
  • The increasingly precarious working conditions faced by women journalists, especially those forced to work without contracts, with a lack of social protections, pensions, paid holidays and other social benefits.
  • The discrimination, including political, legal, cultural, racial and social factors faced by women journalists in their careers and communities, which impoverish them.

Alongside unions and social movements across the world we are making the struggle against gender-based violence in the workplace a priority campaign.

We are committed to a fair gender portrayal in the news. Based on our commitment to ethical journalism, we fight against discrimination and help support positive quality journalism by publishing reporting guidelines and promoting best practices.

Alongside our affiliates we are campaigning for:

  • Stronger laws on equal pay, pay transparency and for equal rights.
  • Equal pay for equal work. An end to the glass ceiling.
  • No more precarity – for decent working conditions for all women.
  • States to take urgent action to enforce laws on gender-based violence in all its forms and for employers to take their responsibility for the safety of women journalists.
 
The KUJ’s Gender Council (GC) and its Steering Committee co-ordinates this work, with activists drawn from every region of the Pakistan.

 

  •  Press Freedom
There can be no press freedom if journalists exist in conditions of corruption, poverty or fear.


Press freedom can be endangered by an assassin’s bullet, fired to kill an investigative journalist and to intimidate and silence his colleagues.

But it can also be endangered by the knock on the door from the police, arresting a reporter to question her on her sources, or to jail her, with or without a proper trial.

It is threatened by restrictive media laws and defamation law suits which put the power over editorial content into the hands of censors and courts or by violence of all kinds, cyber-bullying and internet shutdowns, by poverty pay, a growing concentration of media ownership and a media environment in which ethical concerns and quality journalism are sacrificed for profit or political advantage.

The KUJ lobbies and speaks out for press freedom at all major international fora – from the United Nations Human Rights Council to the European Parliament, from the Organisation of African Unity to the OSCE and national parliaments and regional bodies.

It provides training, support, campaigning, mobilisations and reports which help build the case for journalists to be able to work free from poverty, corruption and fear.
 
 
 Workers’ Rights


Journalists and media workers organized in strong and active unions are better paid, have better terms and conditions and better social protections.

The threats to journalists’ working conditions – precarious work, job cuts, low pay, long hours and political and commercial pressures - are abundant.

But the message is clear - whether in digital or traditional media, mainstream or alternative, public service or privately-owned, whether employed or freelance, younger or older, male or female - union action, collective bargaining and professional solidarity make a difference.