City govt not worried about SWM strike, yet

Solid Waste Management Dept is currently unconcerned about a strike called by a sweepers union.

LAHORE: The Solid Waste Management Department of the City District Government is currently unconcerned about a strike called by a sweepers union, as other unions said they would not give up work just yet.

Mushtaq Aasi, head of the CDGL Sweepers Union, told reporters on Monday that sanitary workers and SWM staff would go on strike on October 11 in protest at the government’s decision to privatise the sanitation business.

But officials of the Sanitation Workers Action Committee told The Express Tribune that their members would not be joining the strike because the government was currently busy with flood relief efforts.

“Our union is not striking yet,” said Khalid Shahzad, the secretary general of the SWAC, which has about 7,500 members. “We are considering our options. Our goal is to speak directly with the chief minister.”

Asked to comment on the strike, a leading SWM official said: “If it’s only Mushtaq Aasi that is calling for a strike, it will have little to no effect on the SWM Department. If other unions get involved there could be consequences, but that remains to be seen.” Aasi was unavailable for comment.

Shahzad said sanitary workers’ main demand was that they be given regular jobs instead of short-term contracts. They are also concerned that they will lose their job once the city’s waste management operations are privatised.

“We are against the renting of sanitary workers,” he said. “Under the current circumstances, sanitary workers are forced to sign an 89-day agreement, in which the worker receives no Sundays off and no medical cover, with a salary of just Rs200 a day.”

He said that the SWAC was trying to raise awareness and may hold a conference soon for this purpose. “Sanitation work should be accepted as a legitimate career. A worker may work for over 30 years on a temporary salary and still be considered an unskilled worker by the general public.” The SWM Department official said that the workers’ demand for regularisation would be addressed.

“The law is still pending in the courts. Once that is confirmed it will be done and the workers will be made permanent.” Shahzad said that workers had lost faith in Aasi’s Sweepers Union because it had called off a strike last year.

Aasi, speaking at the press conference on Monday, defended this decision, saying that the union had shown restraint by calling off the strike following assurances from the city government that their grievances would be addressed.

An SWM worker said he had no faith in his union. “The unions and their leaders have become really corrupt. They don’t really look at us or how we are doing,” he said.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif recently announced Rs 30 million for the Lahore Waste Management Company to meet the initial cost of the privatisation process. According to a report released by the Korea International Cooperation Agency and World Bank in July 2007, Lahore generates around 9,000 tons of waste per day, while the SWM Department has the capacity to manage just 5,000 tons per day.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2010.