Pen-down strike stymies official work

Public school teachers on strike till Monday

RAWALPINDI:

Various collectives and associations of government employees – including clerks and teachers – continued their pen-down strike and protests against the privatization of government schools, and changes to leave encashment and pension regulations.

As part of the protests, teachers stayed away from classrooms for a second successive day, with the boycott expected to continue on Monday.

The leaders announced that if their demands were not met by then, they would march to Lahore and surround the chief minister’s office. There will be no classes on October 10 across the province, they warned.

Last month, the Punjab School Education Department released a revised list of 11,048 public schools slated for privatisation, including 1,134 government schools in the Rawalpindi Division.

The protesters included members of the All Pakistan Clerks Associations (APCA) and All Government Employees Grand Alliance (AGEGA), with their officeholders claiming that the amendment to pension regulations had drastically reduced their payouts as compared to public servants in other provinces.

Fida Naqvi, while addressing protesters, said that conveyance allowance was set in 2013 when petrol was Rs65 were litre. Now, it is above Rs300, he pointed out. “Every employee should be given a monthly conveyance allowance of Rs15000.”

Another speaker pointed out that medical allowance had also not been upgraded despite constant inflation that broke records this year.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2023.