Railways, drivers’ association deadlock ongoing

Operations still affected in some areas despite strike being called off, drivers awaiting final response

LAHORE: The tussle between Pakistan Railways and All Pakistan Train Drivers Welfare Association (Association) has not yet ended as the latter is still hoping that its demands would be accepted.

As per railway officials, most demands of train drivers are legitimate and should have been fulfilled before the drivers decided to apply for collective leave as a sign of protest. The government had to temporarily hire retired drivers as a result of the move to continue operations and avoid total paralysis of the transport network.

Train operations throughout the country were affected by the strike and in some cases passengers are still suffering due to delays in arrivals and departures of trains, despite the Association officially calling the strike off within 18 hours.

Train drivers and associated staff have been calling for a service restructuring mechanism for several years. Drivers are now also demanding service restoration of colleagues who were found guilty in inquiry reports of different train accidents - a proposition which the government has outright rejected.

The demand of releasing train drivers arrested during the brief strike obviously stands as well with the authorities asking the association to let the law take its course.

“Railways is now paying the price for mistakes made by the railways department for the past several years,” former general manager railways Saeed Akhter told The Express Tribune. “Two decades ago, all grades were settled and every employee, irrespective of seniority, was appointed at the deserving grade.”

“In 2005, the situation started deteriorating when some Senior Ticket Collectors managed to upgrade their scales by allegedly bribing their seniors,” Akhter claimed, adding that the trend became popular from then onwards with several station masters copying it as well.

“The trend clicked and pressure groups emerged with train drivers forming the most powerful group, despite being junior staffers, due to their importance in the functioning of railways.” A train driver, requesting anonymity, said that the Association has been asking for fulfilment of its demand from the railway authorities for several years.

“What should we do if officials manage to get promoted several times while we [drivers] are only provided assurances and [false] promises [of pay raises],” he asked. “We have to show our strength in order to bring higher officials at the negotiating table.” “Railways has again formed a committee to devise a restructuring mechanism for railway employees,” he said, adding deploringly that such measures have been tried and tested in the past with no results. A railways spokesperson siad that majority of the demands are already under consideration but a few will be harder to accept and will require legislative and/or procedural changes.

“The matter of arrested drivers cannot be fixed by the Chief Executive Officer,” he said. “We have to pass this demand on to the minister,” he said, adding that “for sacked drivers, railways cannot reinstate them since they were removed after following due process and due to criminal negligence on the job.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2017.

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