2021/1/19
The staff of Sumeria News agency on Tuesday submitted a collective resignation in protest against the non-payment of their financial dues for the past six months
The Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq learned from a number of resigning editors, that the agency staff submitted the collective resignation after the administration had refused to hand over their financial dues and reduced them to only one third, pointing out that the staff did not receive its salary for a whole year now, and received reduced salaries for only six months, in exchange for signing a written pledge not to claim their dues judicially, and pledged to hand over the rest of the dues later
The agency’s employees expressed dissatisfaction with the agency’s mismanagement, particularly by the director of the department, Ghazwan Jassim, who treated the employees in a non-respectful manner and forced them to work overtime, free of charge, hours
Ammar Talal, the agency’s Administrative Manager, denied that the staff had submitted a collective resignation, contrary to what the two workers said, adding that an administrative dispute had occurred and was being resolved
The Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq rejects the humiliating and unacceptable disregard by the management of the Sumeria News Foundation towards its employees, which violates the minimum rights of journalists
The association calls on the agency’s management and its officials to speed up the release of journalists’ entitlements, take into account the circumstances and difficulties faced by media staff in performing their journalistic work, and to end manipulating their living Demands
The Association expresses its full solidarity with its fellow journalists and is fully prepared to proceed with legal proceedings to obtain their dues
