PTCL employees to continue strike

PTCL workers have decided to continue their strike after negotiations with the management failed.


Express August 25, 2010

LAHORE: Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) workers have decided to continue their strike after negotiations with the management failed, Employees Union (CBA) secretary general Hasan Muhammad Rana told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.

Rana said that the management was not ready to give the employees their rights. The management had called union members on August 26 for negotiations after the Lahore High Court directed the management to solve the matter out of court. According to Rana the management ended the negotiations ‘suddenly’. “The management is going against the court’s directions and is committing contept of court,” Rana said.

PTCL senior vice president Human Resources, Mazhar Hussain, confirmed that the PTCL management had called off negotiations with the employees, saying that they were pressurizing the company through ‘cheap tactics’. “How can talks be possible when 400 employees are standing outside the office shouting threatening slogans,” he said, adding that the company has not committed contempt of court.

The company employees want a 50 per cent increase in salaries like other government employees, following the federal government’s announcement, the secretary general said. Rana added that last year the government had announced, under the Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme, that 12 per cent of the government-owned shares in various companies including PTCL would be transferred to workers, but the promise had not been fulfilled. “Even after a year the workers are still deprived,” he said.

Hasan Rana also claimed that after its privatisation, the PTCL administration had “illegitimately” stopped promotions, Hajj quota and other such facilities that PTCL employees had enjoyed before.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2010.

COMMENTS (6)

Faisal Javed | 13 years ago | Reply well said munaf javed 100% true
Faizan Kazi | 13 years ago | Reply They have every right to demand a strike. They are not being given what is due to them. Promises must be fulfilled. When you are promised something and don't get it then you'd comprehend their situation. Have you ever felt desparation? Or did your daddy and mommy spoil you too much?
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