Job security: State Life employees vow to resist privatisation

Hold demonstrations in Sindh and Punjab

KARACHI: Workers of the State Life Insurance Corporation took to the streets on Tuesday against the government's reported decision to privatise the 'profitable' public entity.

"The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government wants to sell the institution, which has an annual income of over Rs20 billion and profits of around Rs1.28 billion," said Shahid Waheed, the corporation's employees' union president.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Waheed claimed the company, since its nationalisation in the early 1970s, has never been in loss.

The government has prepared a policy in the name of reorganising already profitable institutions and wants to freeze its existing life fund, the employees' union president claimed.

"According to the plan, State Life will take a fresh start with a new fund. We believe this is a tactic to force the corporation towards a loss and then ultimately sell it to please financiers at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund," he alleged.

At the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday, the corporation's employees converged to lodge their protest against the privatisation.

Addressing the protest, Nasir Mansoor, deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation, also lashed out at the government's decision, saying whenever Nawaz Sharif assumes power he targets the working class.

"The PML-N government has an agenda to privatise all the services-rendering institutions in the country — a practice which purely defines his capitalist thought," said Mansoor.

He quoted the phrase, 'when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty', in his address to the protesters and said in this struggle all the workers are on the same page and will continue to protest until their demands are met.

Similar protests were also held in other parts of Sindh, including Hyderabad and Larkana, as well as in parts of Punjab. The joint action committee of the corporation says a 'big' demonstration will be held in Lahore on May 23. A petition against the privatisation has also been filed in the Sindh High Court, which is scheduled to be heard next week.

According to the workers' union, President Mamnoon Hussain issued The State Life (Reorganisation) Ordinance on April 6 this year and, later, the government got it passed from the National Assembly without holding a debate on it. It is yet to be presented in the Senate for approval.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2016.