FDE contract employees demand regularisation

Daily-wage, contract staff seek regularisation in light of SC orders

ISLAMABAD:

Daily-wage and contractual employees, who have been working in the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) for the past decade, on Tuesday, demanded that the government act on orders of the apex court and to immediately regularise their services.

In a statement on Tuesday, representatives of the FDE Daily Wages and Contract Action Committee that daily-wages teaching and non-teaching staff have been pushed to the brink of financial ruin because they have not been regularised even though some of them have been working for over 12 years.

They added that in 2018, the Supreme Court (SC) had upheld a verdict from the high court and ordered to regularise all daily-wage workers in FDE.

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When the government failed to implement the orders, they approached the court again. In response, the government split the employees into different categories and referred their cases to different authorities. The cases of teachers in basic pay scale (BPS) grade 15 were sent to the federal cabinet while those of BPS-16 and 17 were referred to the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC).

The daily way and contract employee representatives said that the cabinet formed a committee to resolve the issue but after a few days, even this committee became dysfunctional.

The daily wage and contract teachers said that they had approached every forum for implementing the court orders, including in the Senate Standing Committee on Education through its member Behramand Tangi. The federal education secretary had assured the Senate panel that the issue will be resolved.

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The issue, they claim, was removed from the committee's agenda without ever getting resolved. The same thing happened in the cabinet too, the action committee members maintained.

They said that they were stranded despite clear orders from the court and were struggling to execute court orders.

They added that some 50 contractual employees have not been paid for the past five years.

They demanded of the prime minister and chief justice to ensure implementation of court orders.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2020.