ISLAMABAD, May 20: People’s Rights Movement (PRM) has pledged support to the struggle of Pakistan Telecommunications Company (PTCL) workers against the proposed privatization of the state enterprise. Following a meeting with activists of the PTCL Unions Action Committee, PRM leader Zahoor Ahmed said the movement would mobilize all possible support for the anti-privatization movement.

He said if the PTCL workers succeeded in forcing the government to retreat from the intended sale of the company, it would be a major defeat for neo-liberal ideologues within the government and its financiers in the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Azad Qadri of the PTCL Unions Action Committee said the government was insistent on selling the PTCL even though it was highly profitable and provided an invaluable service to the public at affordable rates.

He said in the event of PTCL’s privatization, not only would services become inaccessible to the vast majority of working people because of market pricing, but there would also be lack of investment in the new communications infrastructure across the country. Furthermore, thousands of PTCL workers are almost sure to be fired under the management of the private sector.

Zahoor Ahmed said this strategy had failed miserably in all parts of the third world, including Pakistan. Yet because of the overwhelming power of international financial oligarchies and the complicity of the Pakistani state elite, this strategy was still being pursued, he added.

He said the contradiction in the neo-liberal paradigm was that while the state’s welfarist responsibilities were compromised, its undemocratic and unrepresentative nature was consolidated and therefore its repressive capacities were enhanced. This is why the state reacts so aggressively to struggles of working people.

However, Zahoor Ahmed pointed out that because of the sensitive nature of the PTCL and the services it provided, it will be very difficult for the state to use repression to crush anti-privatization movement.