PESHAWAR: The Class-IV employees of the Civil Secretariat threatened here on Wednesday to stage sit-in outside Chief Minister House and the residence of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan in Bani Gala, Islamabad if government failed to revise their scale within a week.

Addressing a press conference, All Class-IV Employees Association (ACEA) president Jabir Hussain said that they had attached great expectations to the slogan of change raised by Imran Khan but he failed to materialise his commitment.

He said that despite the announcement of chief minister regarding their upgradation, no tangible step was taken in that regard so far. He said that there were approximately 93,000 Class-IV employees across the province including qasid, naib qasid, gatekeeper, gardener, waiters and sweepers. “We perform important official duties but our salaries are next to nil,” Mr Hussain said.

Speaking on the occasion, Abdul Wahid, general secretary of the association, demanded of the government to upgrade them immediately according to their charter of demands and fix job quota for their scions as it was their right.

“All government employees, from clerk to superintendent, have been promoted to next grade but unfortunately Class-IV employees have been ignored. It is injustice with us. We retire in the same scale in which we are recruited,” he added.

Mr Wahid saiNewspaper.Peshawar:LatestNewsd that half of their salary was spent on paying electricity and gas bills.

“The rates of daily use items have been increased to an extent that no employee can meet the routine expenditures. The salary is insufficient for a Class-IV employee and the government is least bothered to pay us attention,” he said.

The coalition government in the province, he said, was duty bound to pay attention to them and accept their demands without any further delay to remove unrest among the poor workers. Mr Wahid said that the irresponsible attitude of the government forced them to boycott their duty and launch a protest drive for acceptance of their demands. The only option left with the employees, he said, was to observe sit-in on roads, outside Chief Minister House and Imran Khan’s residence.

Published in Dawn March 5th , 2015

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