|
|
|
| November 1, 2005 | Tuesday | Ramzan 27, 1426 |
PTCL employees face crunch time
LAHORE, Oct 31: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited employees have been paying the price of the government’s failure to privatize their organization for the last four months or so.
With less than a week left in Eid, they are still awaiting the bonus as the privatization commission has yet to get the petty issue resolved.
Sources told Dawn on Monday that the privatization commission had been authorized to scrutinize all the PTCL matters till the deal of sell-off with a UAE company was “materialized.”
“After the reported withdrawal of the UAE company, the employees are at the mercy of the commission to get their petty issues like Eid bonus solved,” said an official.
He said the PTCL board of directors had, at its meeting on Oct 27, approved the bonus but was awaiting the commission’s approval for its payment to the employees.
The existing five-member board was supposed to be dissolved after the PTCL’s privatization a couple of months ago and a nine-member board was to replace it. Five members were to be nominated by the UAE company and the remaining by the government.
Various incentives announced by the management at the time of the agreement with the employees action committee in June has yet to be implemented.
These include awarding of the company’s scales to the employees, a raise of 20 per cent for the non-gazetted employees who have been hired on terms and conditions, the deceased employees’ children who had already applied through written applications will be provided with jobs on new terms and conditions and for all such cases Rs100,000 will be given to the family of the deceased employees in the future, the existing medical policy will be discontinued in Oct 2005 and a fixed medical allowance of Rs1,400 per month will be paid.
Leave encashment up to 150 days and the employees having at least 15 years of service in the same cadre will be given next promotion scale.
On the other hand, the reported pull out of the UAE company has created panic among the employees.
Speaking to this reporter, some employees said since the privatization process was over in June last, they had been prepared to accept it. “Now we are confused whether or not it is a good development.”
Some other employees said the development might force the government to reverse its decision regarding the incentives. The employees union leaders were reluctant to comment on it, saying they were calling a meeting of their office-bearers of all tiers after the Eid. “We are carefully watching the development and devise our strategy after taking the employees into confidence,” an office-bearer said.
He said the National Industrial Relation Commission had announced holding of referendum for the new CBA in December and the development would promote trade union activities in the company.
Meanwhile, the process of regularizing the services of some 2,700 PTCL daily wagers in the country has been completed.
The process began in August this year and the daily wagers have been given BS-1 to BS-7. They were recruited after 1996 and the government had decided last year to regularize their service.
FACILITIES WITHDRAWN: The Public Relations Department of the PTCL (South) has been denied phone and fax facilities.
Officials said the management was denying the facilities so that the office could not interact with the media. However, an officer said the management had taken back the phone facility from BS-1 to BS-11 employees.
“Since there has been no officer of BS-17 or above in the PR department, the facility could not be allowed,” he added.
|
|
|
|
