Participants discussing the IFJ-FES Future Organising and Transforming Unions in South Asia Workshop Credit: Agni Niraula

South Asian IFJ affiliates – journalists’ unions and associations – meeting in Kathmandu, 6-8 November 2019 reaffirm their commitment to:

• Fight for media freedom, labour, professional, human rights and social justice
• Enhance the safety of journalists, especially for women journalists
• Build stronger unions and associations
• Campaign for a just transition for those moving from traditional to digital career paths
• Stand up for professionalism and ethical journalism

In particular we commit to:

Fight for media freedom

• Demand the end of internet shutdowns, website closures and actions which undermine the free flow of information
• Demand governments and employers abide by international labour rights and standards – and where they do not ask the IFJ to support affiliates to publicise and highlights such violations in appropriate national or international fora.
• Oppose laws which criminalise or undermine online journalism

Enhance the safety of journalists

• Improve the monitoring of violations of journalists rights
• Demand action to tackle impunity
• Campaign for employers to accept their responsibility for training, providing equipment and insurance for journalists, including freelance
• Highlight and seek to address the sexual harassment, violence and abuse – online and offline – faced by women journalists.

Build stronger unions and associations

• Prioritise recruitment among potential growth areas. To develop the research and mapping necessary to identify growth areas, particularly in digital media and among younger workers
• Identify the needs of digital and younger workers
• Review our internal and external communications to enhance our ability to deliver core strategic union messages
• To build links with universities and schools of journalism to raise awareness of unions, labour rights and professional ethics among students.
• To review our rules, structures and representativeness to enable digital, younger and freelance workers to join and play an active role and have a voice in our organisations.
• Recognising untapped potential and that union density remains too low – at 12% average across the region.
• Take active steps to enhance national collaboration and solidarity between journalist organisations on core common issues – especially labour issues.
• Extend and strengthen the digital media working group

Campaign for a just transition from offline to online media

• Oppose unwarranted job losses
• Demand fair compensation and full labour rights in the event of redundancies
• Demand employers/authorities provide funds for reskilling and retraining to enable those who lose their jobs to take up new employment opportunities
• Call on the IFJ to research and advocate for new sustainable financial/economic models for media

Protecting professionalism and ethical journalism

• Promote the IFJ’s global charter of ethics
• Develop a digital charter for media and social media
• Promote awareness of digital workers’ rights and responsibilities
• Develop strategies to counter mis/disinformation
• Promote broader media literacy programs and civil engagement
• Undertake awareness raising and training on ethical/professional issues
• To promote a journalism based on quality not clicks