KARACHI, Aug 3: Various labour organizations on Friday raised their voice against the Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS) of the Shipyard administration and threatened to hold protest demonstrations if the ‘forced eviction’ of employees was not stopped forthwith.

The president of the National Labour Federation, Rafiq Ahmed, in a statement expressed his concern over the situation and termed the scheme as anti-labour. He said that the federal government had approved Rs500 million to pay four salaries annually in addition to house rent and indexation.

Under the new scheme, he said, the payment was made on the basis of service period and all the allowances had been excluded from that which according to him was unfair as the employees would not be able to start any other business with that amount.

Mr Ahmed warned the Shipyard administration against using force to get the employees sign the VSS forms otherwise employees of various organisations would take to streets in protest.

Meanwhile, various labour leaders, including Nasir Mansoor, Abdul Salam, Mohammad Waseem and Syed Nadeem in their statements condemned what they described sacking of the employees and warned that labourers would not stay silent if the process was not stopped.

They said that at least 2,100 people were being deprived of their jobs which they said was an action against the basic human rights and appealed to the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take suo motu notice.