Protest: SNGPL employees seek regularisation of service

Protestors carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like “we want permanence in our jobs”.

ISLAMABAD:

If the government can regularise teachers and Pakistan International Airlines and Pakistan Railways employees, then why not those working for Sui Northern Gas Pipeline?

This was the driving force behind a protest by about two dozen contractual employees of the gas company in Islamabad on Tuesday.  Carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like “we want permanence in our jobs”, contractual and daily wages employees assembled in front of the Parliament. The protesters included sub-engineers, meter readers and data-controllers.

They said they had been working for the gas company for the past many years but were still to be regularised, even as contractual employees in other government departments were given permanent employments.

They said that officials in the company had assured them many times that they will be given permanent employments whenever posts became available. Afzal, a protester, said, “The company advertised new jobs in the newspapers, but they never regularised us.”

The protesters said they will go on a hunger strike in front of the Parliament if they were not regularised.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2011.