TIP contractual workers stage protest

Threaten to block KKH and march on parliament house if not regularised

HARIPUR:

Hundreds of contractual employees of Telephone Industries Pakistan (TIP) staged a protest rally seeking the regularisation of jobs.

The protesting TIP workers said that despite court orders, hundreds of contractual employees of the TIP could not be regularised.

The TIP contractual employees protested at T&T Colony. Addressing the protesters, their representatives Mian Mohammad Hazim Haroon, Abdul Hafeez and Tahir Bhatti demanded of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to issue orders to implement a notification issued earlier regarding the regularisation of the contractual employees.

They said that the chief justice should also take notice as the Ministry of Information Technology and other ministries have committed contempt of court by not regularising them in the light of the Supreme Court order issued three years ago.

They said that hundreds of contract employees were forced to live a miserable life, while many of them died and various others committed suicide. “The authorities should give us legitimate rights,” they demanded.

The speakers said that the former minister Khurshid Shah had issued the notification of the contractual employees for their regularisation, which could not be implemented to date.

They said that the Supreme Court had directed the Federal Ministry of Information Technology and others to sit with representatives of the contractual workers of TIP to sort out the issue, but the order was never heeded in the last three years, which was contempt of the court.

They warned to stage protest rallies, block Khanpur-Taxila Road and GT Road and march on the Parliament House if their demands were not met immediately.

The representatives of the contractual employees, Abdul Hafeez and Mian Hazem Haroon, told The Express Tribune that most workers have been working without regularisation for over 30 years. They said that various courts have given a decision in our favour of them and directed the TIP administration and the IT Ministry to regularise their jobs.

They said that three years have passed since the Supreme Court issued the order for the regularisation, and the authorities have failed to implement the order.

They said that former ministers Anusha Rehman, Khursheed Shah, Omar Ayub and Babar Nawaz Khan had promised to regularise them but none of them kept their promise.

They said that more than 100 employees have died in these 30 years, 12 employees committed suicide and hundreds of them have attained the age of superannuation waiting for regularisation.

They said that they will block the Khanpur-Road and the Karakoram Highway along by taking their wives and children to the streets and marching on the Parliament House if their regularisation orders were not issued immediately.

The TIP factory management said that the Ministry of Information Technology has the authority to induct these contractual employees as permanent and they were bound to implement if such orders were issued by the ministry.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2022.