LARKANA, Dec 19: Talks between the PTCL management and the union would begin on December 21 in Islamabad over the restructuring policy, as CBA fears mass retrenchment in case of unilateral implementation of the policy.

When contacted, the central chairman of PTCL employees union (CBA), Zulfiqar Sangi, said on Tuesday that talks were being held in the light of directives of the chairman of National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC).

A 10-member committee of PTCL CBA would hold talks with the management to discuss the option of voluntary separation from service (VSS). “We want talks prior to implementation of the policy, only to protect the employees services’ he said and added that it is the question of the future of 65,000 employees of the department.

Presently PTCL has 4,000 telephone operators who are ‘trained technicians’ and the CBA wants the management to absorb them against the technical positions instead of firing them en mass.

Similarly, the technical staff of the abandoned ‘telegraph wing’ of the department are concerned about their future, he said.

The senior positions had been renamed and some of them had even been abolished, he said.

Under the new policy the three wings of the PTCL, ---- switch room, maintenance and operation were created and the authority had issued guidance for the early implementation.

In this connection, the General Manager of STR-V Sukkur on Tuesday visited Larkana and held a meeting with the engineers about the new structure.

The position of General Manager STR-V, Sukkur and Director PTCL sitting in Larkana would be abolished, the sources said adding that a centralized location would be established in Hyderabad.

Presently around 200 employees of the abandoned ‘telegraph wing’ are placed in ‘surplus pool’ in STR-V alone and their future is at stake and the new managers of PTCL is pondering as to how to accommodate them.

Within a couple of days the reshuffling at divisional engineers level would be completed, which would pave the way for bringing further changes up to the director and general manager level, the sources said.

An employee, who requested anonymity, told ‘Dawn’ here on Tuesday that ‘reshuffling’ in the wake of bifurcating the engineers assignments and sections would generate new problems for lower employees.