‘Government told clerks will proceed with strike plan’

Govt cannot be trusted to fulfill our demands, says APCA .

LAHORE: An All Pakistan Clerks’ Association (Punjab Chapter) delegation on Monday declined an additional chief secretary’s (ACS) request that they call off a strike planned for Tuesday (today) to press the government to implement their charter of demands. “We told the ACS that we will proceed with the strike as planned,” APCA Chairman Haji Irshad said.

Irshad said an APCA delegation had visited the Civil Secretariat on Monday to meet the ACS. “The delegation was assured that the charter will be approved within a couple of days and requested to call off the strike,” he said.

Irshad said the delegation was told that work had been completed on two of the demands listed in the charter. “He said the government had completed paperwork for increasing Special Education Department budget by 50 per cent and setting minimum salaries of Zakat Department employees at Rs12,000.

However, he said, the request for calling off strike was rejected because the government could no longer be trusted to fulfill its commitments. “They have not even prepared a summary of the demands included in the charter for approval by the chief minister,” he said.

The APCA Punjab Chapter will observe a pen-down strike across the province and hold sit-ins in front of the Punjab Assembly and offices of the district coordination officers in all districts of the province.

The sit-in in front of the Assembly will start at 10am and continue for four hours.

On March 26, APCA Punjab ended its protest at the Club Chowk after a session with Minister Rana Mashhood, MPA Rana Sanaullah and officers where it was decided that the demands would be met in two weeks. Some of these demands included five per cent increase in salaries of the clerical staff in the province to set it equal to salaries in other provinces, scale upgrade, time scale promotion for staff between BPS grades 5-16, upgrade in the scale of superintendent to BPS grade 17, and salary raise in accordance with inflation.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2015.