PESHAWAR: Scores of former employees of a Swabi-based private tobacco company held a protest demonstration along with their children on Saturday against the company’s management for sacking 141 workers without any reason.

Holding banners and placards inscribed with their demand for reinstatement, the employees gathered outside the Peshawar Press Club and asked the company to implement the court’s decision in this regard.

Led by Awami Workers Party chairman Fanoos Gujar, provincial president Shahab Khattak and the workers’ president Abrarullah and general secretary Sher Zada, the protesters said that the company had sacked 141 workers and deprived them of their livelihood.

“We have obtained a stay order from a court, but the company’s administration is not ready to reinstate the employees,” Mr Abrar said and added that they would soon start protest demonstrations against the company’s action. He claimed that the company’s management had started pressurising the employees and taking resignations from them on different pretexts. He warned that they would block the Swabi-Mardan road tomorrow (Monday) to press for their reinstatement.

However, the company’s official Ms Rubby Gul claimed that the workers were retrenched under a golden handshake and the company had all the relevant record in this regard.

She said that it was compulsion of the company to reduce its staff due to financial constraints because of the growing business of illegal cigarettes in the market and lack of interest on part of the government to take action against the people involved in the trade. She claimed that the business of legally manufactured cigarettes was fast reducing due to increasing taxes, labour charges, etc.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2016