Union matters: KESC’s communication system ‘breaks down’

Union workers deny, say company trying to malign them.

KARACHI:

Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) faced yet another setback in its ongoing standoff with the union workers when it learned on Wednesday morning that its massive internal communication network has been brought down.

The corporation relies on an intricate system of wireless networks provided by Wateen telecom and fiber optic cables installed at one of their main offices near II Chundrigar Road. Workers use the wireless to communicate.

“When we came to work today we discovered that all links of this system had gone down, we can’t even access our emails,” KESC spokesperson Aminur Rehman said.

Rehman said the system was brought down sometime on Tuesday night. He said the ‘sabotage’ act by the protesting union workers was aimed at bringing the corporation to a halt. He added that KESC teams were working round the clock to fix the system since a lot of work depended on it.

Meanwhile, Peoples Workers Union secretary general Latif Mughal denied that any of the protesters were involved in the incident. “The KESC management has a habit of putting everything on the union without coming forward with any proof,” he said.

Mughal maintained that the protesters were demanding their rights peacefully without any attempts at sabotage. “The KESC management has employed former army and intelligence agency people among them who stage such acts in order to malign the workers,” he claimed.

The union workers also say that the June 3 strike on a grid station in Clifton that had plunged vast areas of the city into darkness was incorrectly blamed on them. “They lie all the time. None of our workers were present there and even the police themselves held an inquiry into the incident and said the same thing,” Mughal claimed. He also said that some of the KESC exchanges were going up in flames because of poor management of electricity load by the company.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.