Retrenched staff: Workers protest against K-Electric

Demand monetary cover for sacked employees of former KESC

KARACHI: Those who had been forcibly retrenched during the privatisation and were denied to avail voluntary separation scheme must be accommodated in the company, demanded the Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) chairperson of the former Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), Muhammad Akhlaq Khan.

He was addressing hundreds of retrenched employees of former KESC, who were protesting outside the K-Electric head office Thursday morning. The families of the employees, who have retired or died after it was first privatised in November 14, 2005, must be given a proper monetary cover, he said, demanding the company to restore the labour union activities, remove the ban on CBA office-bearers on entering the company premises and allow them to perform their legal duties.

“We have gathered outside the K-Electric head office to record our protest against the present management and bring to the notice of the new management taking over K-Electric, that is Shanghai Electric, about the liabilities,” said Khan. The federal and Sindh government should take notice of the injustice that was done to more than 7,500 workers, who were sacked due to the previous two takeovers of the company’s administration, he said.

The CBA president, Usman Baloch, was of the opinion that the retrenched employees had reservations over KE’s policies. KE should negotiate with the sacked employees since it is a human rights issue and a matter that affects their children’s future, said Baloch, adding that the company's economic murder has made them depressed.

While talking to The Express Tribune, the K-Electric chief marketing and communication officer said that the matter of the terminated employees is in the court. He added that those who are interested in taking the golden handshake can take it whenever they want.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2016.