KARACHI, May 17: The Habib Bank Workers' Front, terming the recently-revised pay-package for the workers "peanuts," has demanded revision of the same, at a ratio consonant with the prevailing inflation.
The HBWF leaders, speaking at a press conference on Monday, urged the bank's management to initiate a dialogue with the true representatives of the workers on their issues, as tenure of the so-called leaders, with whom the management had earlier held the negotiations, had expired long time ago.
They urged the new management to come out with a clear announcement, ensuring job security to all employees, so that the growing apprehensions among the workers could be allayed.
They slammed the schemes like golden handshake, voluntary separation, downsizing, right sizing, etc, which, they alleged, were being used to oust the workers before reaching the superannuation age.
The HBWF leaders, Habibuddin Junaidi, Fazal K Orakzai, Haji M Yaqoob, S Nadira Perveen, Khalid S Lashkari, Nasir Mahmood and others said that if their demands were not accepted by the management, they would launch a countrywide peaceful protest movement till the achievement of workers' rights.
They said that the annual increments, which the bank employees had been getting for the last many decades, had been abolished in the present package. They apprehended that under the new package, the lower staff would become poorer and the executives would become richer.
Elaborating, theysaid, that under the new package, a clerk would get a maximum increase of Rs908 in basic salary, while some of the executives had been given increments up to Rs50,000.
They also criticized the CBA union's role, whose tenure had expired in 1995, but it was prolonging its tenure. They said that the staff strength of the bank during the union's tenure had decreased by around 14,000 from over 32,000 to 18,000, in the past few years.
Pointing out a decrease in the employees' benefits, bonuses and closing allowances, besides reduction in retirement benefits etc, they demanded that all such benefits and facilities be restored.
They said that while employees' children had not been recruited in the bank, a large number of people had been employed in senior cadres on attractive salaries and perks.
