Re-awakening: KESC employees to renew protest under new committee

Trade unions and civil society invited to join their protest on December 12 at the press club.

KARACHI:

After about four months of silence, the employees of the Karachi Electricity Supply Company (KESC) have decided to renew their protest against the management under the banner of the KESC Workers Unity Committee (KWUC).

Announcing the decision at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday evening, the old guard of the Pakistan Peoples Party labour bureau, Habibuddin Junaidi, Lateef Mughal, Manzoor Badauni and Manzoor Razi said that they had held their peace because they had been looking forward to “better days ahead”, but since that wasn’t happening, they had decided to renew their protests.

They appealed to people in general and other trade unions to join them in a protest on December 12 in front of the press club. According to the KWUC leaders, the agreement between KESC, its employees and the Sindh government was never implemented and the workers were laid off and maltreated.

They said that KESC had also violated court orders, according to which the management could not take any action to harm the employees. “Under the circumstances we don’t have any choice left but to go to the people to take extreme action,” they said.

When asked about the owners of KESC, they said that the media knew them well. “Let their names flash on television channels and let the names of those drawing hefty salaries and their relations to the bigwigs be exposed,” they declared. “We have no reservations.”

Junaidi went so far as to accuse the management of wanting the workers to clash with the government and the state.

Their demands include the implementation of the KESC management-workers agreement. For its part, KESC says it plans to settle the matter amicably and “by the book”, based on the agreements made at Governor House in July meetings attended by the government, union representatives and management.

According to KESC, about 3,000 out of 4,500 protesting employees have silently taken the voluntary golden handshake. “This is just a vociferous minority of workers that are agitating,” said KESC spokesman Aminur Rahman when contacted by The Express Tribune. “I cannot say anything pre-emptively about the protest that will take place but I can say that taking the law into their own hands will serve no purpose.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2011.