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HYDERABAD, May 17: The leaders of the ex-SRTC Employees Action Committee have urged the Sindh government to pay the former employees 15 per cent mark-up on their dues as promised in a written agreement with them.
The committee leaders, Syed Ahmed Ali Shah, Ghulam Mohammad Depar and Shamsher Ali, were speaking at a protest demonstration held by a large number of ex-employees of the defunct SRTC outside the press club here on Friday against the non-payment of their dues.
The labour leaders said that on Thursday they met with SRTC chairman Ibrahim Patel and law officer Yar Mohammad Rind in presence of the representatives of Hyderabad District Nazim and DCO.
They said that in the meeting they were asked to sign a form surrendering 15 percent mark-up on the dues and added that this was tantamount to asking the workers to sign the forms at gunpoint.
They made it clear that since the families of the workers were starving, they would sign the forms in protest but they would insist on the implementation of the agreement signed on Dec 6, 1999.
They said that the authorities had undertaken to deliver the gratuity cheques to the workers on May 24 and GP fund cheques on June 10.
They said that it was highhandedness to take signatures of the workers on the forms before delivering the cheques.
They asked, “when the government had deposited over Rs250 million in the treasury for payment to the workers why this amount was not being paid to them”.
They warned that they reserved the rights to continue struggle for the payment of remaining 15 percent mark-up as envisaged in the written agreement.
BANGLE WORKERS: The chairman, Labour Party of Pakistan, Sindh, Dost Mohammad Channa, has condemned the retrenchment of a large number of bangle industry workers and said that his party would support their struggle for reinstatement.
He was speaking at a joint meeting of the party and Women Workers’ Help- line here on Friday.
He said that Hyderabad’s bangle industry was the biggest bangle industry in Asia but its workers were being exploited by the factory owners, contractors and petty contractors.
Mr Channa deplored that the labour department was ignoring this exploitation.
He demanded that the dismissed workers should be reinstated and the written agreements between the bangle workers’ unions and the factory owners should be implemented.
OIL PRICES: The president of Awami National Party, Sindh, and secretary general of Muttahida Labour Federation, Qamoos Gul Khatak, has expressed concern over the inordinate increase in the prices of petrol and diesel and electricity charges.
In a statement issued here on Friday, he said that on the one hand thousands of workers had been rendered jobless and due to lawlessness and tax survey, industrial and commercial activities had been affected and on the other the government was blindly following the dictate of the IMF and World Bank.
He said that the fixed income group had lost its purchasing power and the industrialists had refused to pay the minimum wages of Rs2,500 to the workers.
He demanded that the increase in the prices of petrol and diesel should be withdrawn and the electricity tariff for domestic consumers should be reduced by 50 per cent.
