Exposé: Sui gas' Babus forcing 'Katcha' workers to ‘end their lives’

Workers who make available gas supply at homes now have their stoves all cold, surviving on one meal a day

KARACHI: DESIGN: AAMIR KHAN

Continuous labour abuse by Sui Southern Gas Company’s (SSGC) influential officials has brought poverty-stricken workers on the verge of ending their lives as rampant corruption now plagues the operations of the semi-private corporation in its Karachi headquarters.

Labourers who have been serving the corporation for more than a decade still wait for their employment to be granted permanent status, while being deprived of basic rights including minimum wage, medical facilities, Eid bonuses and paid leaves — in clear violation of Pakistan's law and labour rules set by the legislatures and International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The data and evidence available with The Express Tribune reveal the deplorable situation of labour rights in Sindh’s only gas-providing corporation partially owned by the government. SSGC’s employees hired for permanent work for the company are labelled as temporary – commonly known as Katchas – so that the high-ups get away with depriving the workers of their due rights.



But that’s just the tip of the iceberg as the scam in SSGC runs deep down from top to bottom of the company’s functions, run by its retired officials who have influence over the administration. The retired officials – or the contractors with nexus with the SSGC’s influential white-collar staffers – run shady companies to supply the Sui Gas company with required workforce. These workers are hired for the SSGC’s operations but are not considered the corporation’s employees rather of the third-party contractors who with impunity deprive them of their due rights.

Documents show that the bonafide workers of the SSGC have been put on contractor payroll despite the ban on contractors or vendors as per Sindh Terms of Employment ACT 2015.

The SSGC document above shows that a recently fired worker, Raza Khan, was issued salary by the company but was later on put on contractors' payroll, in clear violation of labour laws.

Here is how the profitable scam works

The Sui Gas company hires workers after interviewing them. The workers are told they are SSGC employees, however, within a few days these workers’ data is handed over to third-party contractors asking them to get ‘these numbers’ on their payroll instead. Now, the workers hired by the SSGC initially are temporary workers at the company doing labour there. The huge workforce is then termed as temporary or Katcha workers who have no right to get social security, medical facilities, bonuses, insurance, injury compensation and voting and unionising rights.

The temporary workers have a very fragile social-contract with their employers as they can be fired easily without following the labour laws. They can be removed by issuing a single letter and without serving them the mandatory three-month notice, as has happened recently with a myriad of workers, two of whom – namely Raza Khan and Amjad Iqbal, were fired on just one day notice.

The letter shows how SSGC worker Raza Khan was fired without a three-month notice by only issuing a single letter through a contractor.

This letter shows that SSGC worker Amjad Iqbal was fired without a three-month notice by only issuing a single letter through a contractor.

These hardworking labourers have to give 10 per cent  of their payable salaries to the contractors supervising them while SSGC’s management turns a blind eye on this illegal practice. The workers shared with The Express Tribune that the company officials often order them to run their errands, do housekeeping works – such as directing them to pick and drop their children from school – or face consequences. The workers, scared of being fired, have no other choice but to obey the bosses.



Speaking to The Express Tribune, Raza says he was hired by the SSGC in 2003 and was on the company’s payroll. “But it changed after years as in 2008 I was handed over to a contractor who kept exploiting us and recently over two months ago fired us without any reason. I have a family to take care of. These days I think nothing but committing suicide as the only solution,” Raza adds with a sad voice.

“I have served in the company for more than 10 years, to make people’s lives easier by supplying gas but today my house’s stove is cold as I can’t afford meals for my children,” he says.

ID cards of SSGC Workers Amjad and Raza who were fired by their contractors even though they were hired by the SSGC initially.

Same is the story of Amjad who was fired with his colleague Raza, again without taking into account his diligent services in the company. “I have left everything to God now. Only hope remains with him. I can only pray that I get reinstated as I served this country for so long and now cannot get any new job,” Amjad says while adding that during all his service years, he thought he was respected for his hard work but the management "got him fired with a single letter".

The influential mafia within SSGC ranks

There are tens of contractors apparently supplying workforce to the gas giant who have been on their payroll for more than a decade still awaiting their regularisation.



In light of the historic Supreme Court verdict of 2013 against third-party contracts and certain law clauses, it is illegal for any company to relieve itself of responsibility of its workers by handing the manufacturing task to a vendor.

Further, Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968, which states that any company which has 20 or more labourers who are employed to work more for more than three months of time should deem these employees as their own and make them permanent.

However, The Express Tribune has learnt that many former Sui Gas officials have managed to have the contracts of the labourers altered, defying the country’s laws and industrial regulations.

A worker who has been associated with the company for more than a decade now, in hope of getting regularised one day, shares how erstwhile senior officials namely Rafiq Awan,  Abid Zafar, Mujeebur Rahman along with many others managed to have scores of workers on their third-party vendor’s payrolls to make a lot of money.

Awan, former chief security officer at the SSGC, owns a company named Rafiq Awan Enterprises; Zafar and Rahman, ex-senior officials in SSGC’s communication and finance departments respectively, run a company named Zafar and Sons with the former being its owner and latter the manager. What these three men have in common is the power and influence they hold over the SSGC’s management.

When asked what he thinks of the workers’ due rights and regularisation, Awan says it is easier said than done while confirming that after retirement from the SSGC, he started his vendor company to supply white-collar workers and labourers to the gas giant.

The manager of Zafar and Sons company confirmed they were supplying temporary workers to the SSGC but the owner did not comment on the matter despite repeated calls.



SSGC’s contractors unabashedly violating labour laws

Third-party contract has been termed completely illegal by the provincial government keeping in view Sindh Factories Act 2015 and Sindh Term of Employments 2015, says Joint Director Labour Gulfam Memon of Sindh Labour and HR Department.

The official says that any worker, or his union, can file a complaint with the Labour Department to request for an action. However, union leaders have repeatedly filed cases at National Industrial Relation Commission (NIRC) but have not been dispensed justice, say workers.

When asked about these contractors supplying the workforce to the company, the SSGC says in a statement given to The Express Tribune that more than 10 vendors are providing the services to SSGC, and anybody, who fulfills the criteria, can provide services to the gas giant.

"The concept or requirement of regularisation does not apply in this case" for providing workers with their due rights, the statement adds.



However, according to Sindh Terms of Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 2015 clearly states: “[A] worker means any person employed in any industrial establishment or commercial establishment or a mine to do any skilled or unskilled, manual or clerical work for hire or reward and includes permanent, probationer, badli, temporary, apprentices and contract workers, but does not include occupier and manager having the hiring and firing authority; provided that no worker shall be employed through an agency or contractor or sub-contractor or middleman or agent, to perform function relating to their contract of employment.”

The statement further confirms that the company officials have been flouting the labour laws by outsourcing the work to contractors and disowning the bonafide SSGC workers.