KARACHI: Workers consensus on labour policy demanded
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 5: Speakers at a meeting on Wednesday demanded that the draft of the proposed labour policy be widely published in the press to get input from all the relevant people.
Speaking at the meeting organised in connection with the Iftar party by the Habib Bank Workers Front (HBWF), they said that though the draft policy had been sent to some people, including some labour leaders, it was necessary that it was widely discussed and a consensus was arrived at before the new policy was announced.
They said that the draft also did not include anything regarding the two most controversial amendments — Section 27 B in the Banking Companies Ordinance and Sec 2 A in the Civil Servants Act — done by the past government of Nawaz Sharif curtailing the rights of the workers, particularly those working in the banking sector and other public sector corporations.
They said that during a recent meeting with the labour leaders the federal labour minister had promised to review both these anti-worker amendments in the relevant laws so that the rights of the employees were not violated.
They said that the strength of the Habib Bank had been brought down from over 32,500 to around 17,000 in the past five years and over 350 branches of the bank had been closed down. They demanded that no more employees be sacked under the pretext of down sizing, rightsizing, voluntary separation scheme and golden handshake and no more branches of the bank be closed down.
They demanded that low-grade employees of the Habib Bank who had not been given promotions in the past five years be promoted.
They also demanded that the bank’s employees be kept in all the security duties as earlier and that the contract given to a private security agency be cancelled.
They said that trade union activities which had been curtailed / suspended in the PIA, the Railways and the KESC should be allowed immediately. They also called for referendums in all organisations where the incumbent CBAs had completed their tenures but were prolonging their stay in the office by using certain loopholes in the relevant laws.
They also demanded that the sacked labour leaders of the Muslim Commercial Bank and the Allied Bank be reinstated immediately and negotiations regarding the charter of demands and other labour issues be instituted with them.
The HBWF chief Habibuddin Junaidi, Saeed Ghani and other labour leaders spoke at the meeting which was attended by a large number of Habib Bank employees and labour leaders belonging to other trade union organisations.
