KARACHI: Hundreds of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees suspended their regular work for more than two hours and staged a protest demonstration at Karachi airport against proposed privatisation of the national flag carrier which hit the routine operation of the airline.

The demonstration was part of the countrywide protests called by Joint Action Committee of PIA Employees, an alliance of several PIA workers’ unions that agreed on the one-point agenda to resist the proposed privatisation.

Addressing the agitating workers who gathered outside the PIA head office, the JAC leaders announced that they would march towards Quaid-i-Azam International Airport in the next phase of the protest if the PIA ordinance was not repealed.

Paving the way for its privatisation, the government earlier this month converted PIA into a company through the ordinance promulgated by the president. Though the PIA management and the government insist that the conditions for its employees would remain unchanged, the workers’ unions and the opposition parties criticised the move.

The management claimed that the airline employees in every grade and category would stand transferred to the company, PIA Company Limited, with the same designation and on the same terms and conditions as they held in PIA Corporation. However, the assurances fall short to convince workers and their associations which vowed to continue their protest.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2015