HYDERABAD, Feb 14: The Pakistan Workers Confederation marched from the labour hall to press club here on Monday to protest against the inordinate increase in prices of consumer goods and rampant unemployment.

Speaking on the occasion, labourers' leaders Abdul Latif Nizamani, Rehan Yousfi, Qamoos Gul Khattak, Iqbal Qaimkhani and others lashed out at elected representatives for their insensitivity towards problems of their electorates. They claimed that it had been proved that the policy of privatization had failed throughout the world because it had rendered tens of thousands of workers jobless.

They said privatization of electricity would render a telling blow on people because the cost of production would increase manifold. Not only this, they added, thousands of workers would also lose their jobs. They criticized privatization of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation.

They said it was an irony that fringe benefits and salaries of the people in power had been increased by 600 per cent but a common man could not even meet both ends. The leaders demanded that the president and the prime minister should reduce the prices of essential commodities and abandon the policy of privatization.