KARACHI, March 30: Speakers at a workers’ meeting on Sunday demanded that workers be given the right to elect their collective bargaining agent in the Habib Bank.

Speaking at the concluding session of the three-day national conference of the Habib Bank Workers Front, they pointed out that there had been no referendum in the bank for over eight years now.

They said that reasons for deterioration of trade unionism in the all the industries in general and in the banking industry in particular were anti-worker laws and establishment of pocket unions by managements.

They said the record showed that in all the industries where pocket unions were formed and patronized, corruption in the management was rampant and the organizations suffered as a result.

Those who spoke on the occasion included Habibuddin Junaidi, Zafar Iqbal, Syeda Nadira Parveen, Fazal Karim Orakzai, Haji Yaqoob, Nasir Mehmood.