KARACHI, April 9: Workers of Muslim Commercial Bank, condemning the sacking of over 220 low-grade employees a few days back, have demanded their immediate reinstatement.

Speaking at a press conference at the Press Club, on Tuesday, the MCB staff union leaders further demanded that all the suspended union leaders be reinstated and the quota of employees’ children in recruitment be restored.

They said that after the sacking of over 220 low-grade employees, the workers feared that the management planned to sack over 2,000 more employees, and later officers would be sacked as well.

They said that the bank had made over Rs2 billion profit and was hiring favourite people at fabulously-high salaries. Therefore, they argued, there was no reason for low-grade and low-paid employees to be sacked.

They said that by doing this, the MCB management was planning to run the bank through contractual employees. They said that to weaken and cripple the union financially, the management had stopped deducting union subscription from the employees’ salaries, so that the union could not get funds.

Their other demands included restoration of promotion policy and medical facilities for parents of low-grade officers, cancellation of transfers to far-off places, stoppage of blackmailing of employees in the name of reviewing cases of house-building loans and vengeful action against union leaders, etc.

They said that due to these anti-labour steps by the bank, unrest was spreading among the workers, and if the management continued its policies, the workers would launch a struggle to claim their rights.

They urged the management to start negotiations with the union leaders before the situation got out of the union’s hands and workers started taking direct action.

Union chief, Saeed Ghani; Malik M. Gulistan and others also spoke.

Other labour leaders including Habibuddin Junaidi (Habib Bank), Kamran Chaudhry (PIA), Shamshad Qureshi (Steel Mills), Mohammad Khan Abro and Liaquat Sahi (State Bank), Mirza Rafiq Beg (National Bank), Shahid Naqvi (Allied Bank), Shaikh Majeed (People’s Labour Bureau), Zahid Awan (United Bank) and others who were present at the press conference expressed solidarity with the MCB workers and assured them of full support.