Demanding rights: Clerks association holds demonstration
The protest was led by their senior provincial vice-president Farooq Jalbani.
RATODERO:
A token pen-down strike was observed by the All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) in Larkana for two hours on Thursday. They also held a protest rally and demonstration at the Jinnah Bagh roundabout near Larkana Press Club. The protest was led by their senior provincial vice-president Farooq Jalbani, Larkana district president Aijaz Mirani, Rasul Bux Abbasi, Ghulam Hussain Pitafi and others who held large banners and shouted slogans. Mirani said that their demands include a revision of their pay scales during the next annual budget of 2014-15, allowances of house rent, utility, medical, conveyance, group insurance and pension fund for retired employees. The protest was joined by the clerks of irrigation, population, health, Sindh small industries, education, Sindh technical colleges and other units of the APCA.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 14th, 2014.
The clerks are demanding for their rights for a long time, but it seems that the authorities have no interest or concern to listen to them and take practical steps to solve them. Clerks are the most important segment of office work, and they are the people who are actually put the office in operation. They are in the first layer of people, who knows the basic of handling the office work, whether it is typing correspondence, receiving or delivering mail, record keeping or retrieving files and other vital records and list goes, but their service structure and pay package is hardly enough for their survival. I have my full sympathies with clerical staff, and add my voice to their struggle with the request to high-ups to listen to their genuine demands, so that they can cope with their social and economic needs in an efficient manner.