LAHORE, June 27: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) workers will ‘foil’ the selling out of their organization as its privatization process has yet to be completed. “Only the bidding process has completed,” the Anti-Privatization Alliance (APA) leaders told the journalists at a press conference here on Monday. They apprehended that some 30,000 workers would lose their jobs with the completion of the privatization process. “The organization is being sold to get rid of the workers who are ‘surplus labour’ according to the government estimates.”

They said that protest against the privatization of national assets like the PTCL would be continued.

The future course of action, they said, would be decided at a meeting of the representatives of all political parties, trade unions and social organizations on July 7 in Lahore.

The APA would hold protest demonstrations at Faisalabad and Gujranwala in July and August. The dates would be announced after the July 7 meeting.

A chapter of the APA had been set up in Karachi while another branch of the alliance was being established in Rawalpindi.

They demanded immediate release of Haji Khan Bhatti who was being tortured for opposing the PTCL’s sale.

Haji Khan Bhatti, Sabir Butt and Malik Maqbool who had been sacked for holding anti-privatization protests should be reinstated, they said.

Pakistan Labour Party secretary-general Farooq Tariq said the APA would observe July 5 as black day and a demonstration would be held outside the Lahore Press Club.

According to him, the privatization process was started under the new liberal agenda of the World Bank and IMF ‘at gunpoint’ which was against all democratic norms. “Eight of the nine PTCL workers unions have not signed the privatization package in spite of immense pressure and are part of the APA.”