ISLAMABAD, July 7: Leaders of eight workers unions of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) here on Thursday warned of launching, within a few days, a countywide strike to pressurize the government to abandon the ongoing process of PTCL privatisation as their talks with management failed to make any headway in the post-bidding scenario. Union leaders, released after having been detained by the government with a view to have a smooth bidding for the 26 per cent strategic shares of PTCL on June 18, have again threatened to jam Pakistan’s telecommunication system and start countrywide strike within a few days. They accused the management of breaching its promise by not implementing the “much-trumpeted” Rs5 billion relief package for the workers from June 1, and ensuring job security to workers in future.

The leaders were speaking at a packed news conference here at the camp office of the Rawalpindi Islamabad Press Club, as dozens of policemen stood outside to deal with any untoward situation.

Member of the PTCL Unions Action Committee, Lala Hanif, said the government had held bidding for the PTCL shares after detaining the leaders at gun point. He said the workers would never accept privatisation and now, when they were again free, they would mobilise the workers for another strike. He said the action committee had already started mobilising the workers in Lahore and Karachi and now it was a matter of days and not weeks when strike would be observed.

He said talks of the action committee with PTCL President Junaid I Khan failed because Mr Khan allegedly told the union leaders on Wednesday that he himself did not know whether he would remain in the company after next 24 hours. They said in such a situation how could he guarantee job protection to workers. He said four union leaders, Haji Khan Bhatti, Malik Maqbool, Sabir Butt and Ashraf Khan, had been fired from their jobs by the management and were yet to be reinstated.

Those who spoke at the news conference included Haji Khan Bhatti, Latif Qureshi, Zafar Zaidi, Sabir Butt, Sirajul Hassan, Malik Maqbool Hussain, Javed Imran and Shahid Ayub. They said the union which had left the action committee and accepted privatisation after an agreement with the government was ‘traitor’.