Longstanding demand: APCA holds protests for better wages

Other demands are pay scale upgrade, time-scale promotions.

LAHORE: The Punjab chapter of the All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) on Tuesday held protest demonstrations in Lahore and Faisalabad, demanding better wages.

In Lahore, hundreds of APCA workers staged a sit-in at Secretariat Chowk. They blocked it for all kinds of traffic for four hours. They chanted slogans against the government and Finance Department officials. They also burned the effigy of the Finance Department deputy secretary.

Talking to The Express Tribune, APCA Punjab chapter president Haji Muhammad Irshad Chaudhry said that they wanted the government to accept their charter of demands.

“We want the government to raise salaries of clerical staff by an additional five per cent in the upcoming budget. Our pay scales should be up-graded as the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has done. The government should also give time-scale promotions to employees in grades 5 to 16. The post of superintendent should be upgraded to grade 17,” he said.

“The government had accepted some of these demands in principle. However, the Finance Department officials are not forwarding the demands to the chief minister for final approval,” he said.

Services and General Administration Department Deputy Secretary (Personnel) Majid Ahmad met the APCA delegation and assured them that their demands would be met soon.

Irshad said that they would go on strike and boycott offices across the province if their demands were not met by February 24. A similar protest demonstration was held at Zila Council Chowk in Faisalabad.

APCA Punjab deputy general secretary Abdul Aziz Bhatti and divisional president Rai Muhammad Ejaz Khan led dozens of protesters.

Bhatti said that the government had not provided any incentives or relief to low-grade employees.

“Instead of raising salaries, the government is considering privatisation of government departments,” he said.

He said that the government should increase salaries of government employees according to the inflation rate.

Khan said that the government should regularise the services of all daily-wage, contractual and ad-hoc employees. “If the government does not pay heed to our demands, we will march to Lahore and stage a protest demonstration in front of the Punjab Assembly,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2015.