On the streets: Metro guards protest ‘shoddy treatment’

A PMA spokesman said the metro bus service was suspended for 90 minutes between due to the protest

LAHORE:

Scores of security workers for Punjab Mass transit Authority (PMA) staged a protest demonstration and blocked the metro track to demand payment of wages.

Carrying placards and chanting slogans, guards of Security 2000, a private company engaged by the PMA, staged a sit-in at Kalma Chowk. They held up traffic at the intersection and stopped the metro bus.

Muhammad Adeel, one of the protesters, said he was an electrical engineering student at the Lahore of University. He said he had been working for Security 2000 for over a year.

He said the company had not paid his salary for two months.

“The government has set the minimum wage at Rs13,000 a month but we were paid Rs8,000,” he said.

Rehman Nadim, another protester, too, said that he was a student.

“I worked the 6am to 2pm shift. Often the management asked me to work over time. I have not been paid for overtime,” he said.

Muhammad Saddam, another protester, said the workers were not allowed off days.

“We are fined Rs1,933 for each day we take off,” he said. He said company would force overtime work on others if someone went on an unexpected leave.

Rehman Nadim said he had been working with the company for two-and-a-half years.

He said he had been promised a raise but the promise had not been fulfilled,” he said.

He said the management fined them over petty violations.

“They fine us Rs662 if an employee’s name-tag is a few inches off,” he said. “They say we must ensure that the CCTV cameras always catch our tags.” Muhammad Aslam said that he had been hired for guard duty at the Nishtar Colony stop.

“If someone steps away for a drink of water, the company fines him Rs700,” he said.

He said if an authorised vehicle entered the metro track, he was fined. He said this was injustice.

Ebad Ali said the company held their CNICs and would not hand those over when somebody left work.

“Moreover, they would keep our salary for one month with them,” he added. He said owed them three months salary.

Security 2000 CEO Muhammad Faisal told The Express Tribune that out of their 500 employees deployed on the metro bus track, only 30 to 40 had joined the protest.

“Some of their demands are genuine but many of their claims are made up,” he said.

“There is no bonded labour,” he said. “These workers were hired after they signed a contract. They consented to the work they do.”

He said a weekly-off day was a reasonable demand.

A PMA spokesman said the metro bus service was suspended for 90 minutes between Kalma Chowk and Shahdara due to the protest. He said that the protestors were third party-employees and the PMA could not comment on the contractor’s human resource practices.

He said the company was paid on time for its services and had been urged to improve relations with its staff.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2015.