News
Monday, February 27, 2012
Trade unions demand scrapping of privatisation plan
KARACHI: Senior labour leaders and office bearers of trade unions and federations of Pakistan have demanded of the government to call off the privatisation plan of the remaining state-owned enterprises and corporations as the previous privatisations had resulted in heavy losses to the corporations, national exchequer and increase in unemployment in the country.
They also called for protection of labour rights in both private and public sector organisations and ensure right to trade unionism as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan. These trade union leaders were speaking at a consultation on ‘Problems of Public Sector Organisations’ organised by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), at PILER Centre here last Saturday.
The office bearers and leaders of trade unions of Pakistan Steel, Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), Pakistan Railways (PR), Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) and representatives of Pakistan Workers Confederation (PWC), All Pakistan Trade Unions Organisation (APTUO), PWC, Mazdoor Mahaz Amal and Muttahida Labour Federation (MLF) also attended the meeting. Senior labour leader Usman Baloch presided over the meeting. The labour leaders pointed out that over 460 public-sector industries, banks, utilities and service providers have been privatised since 1991, but the performance of almost all such units had aggravated instead of improving; many establishment have closed down and thousands of workers were rendered jobless. After privatisation, the new management of almost all such units have started hiring employees on contract basis or through third party employment system, which has usurped the workers’ rights and also weakened the trade union movements in the country. The performance of the privatised corporations after the buyout has badly been affected and common people have also suffered because of the poor performance and inefficient services by these private sector organisations, especially in case of privatisation of KESC, PTCL, ghee and sugar mills. The government had sold ghee and sugar mills on a pretext that people would get these commodities on lower rates. But these private sector companies, in collaboration with other companies, have formed cartels and prices of sugar and ghee have increased manifold since then. The performance of KESC is another example. Common citizens are suffering much more after privatisation of the utility and situation is becoming worse, they added.
The government had pledged that 90 percent of the amount from privatisation money would be spent on debt retirement and the remaining 10 percent on poverty alleviation. “The country’s debts have increased manifold since then and poverty is increasing with the passage of time,” said Ghulam Farid Awan, a senior trade unionist. He said in the informal sector 95 percent labour was hired on contract basis, where workers did not have any rights, including right to make trade union. Awan criticised the public-private partnership scheme of the present government and said this was another form of privatisation. Usman Balcoh underlined the need for a joint struggle by trade unions for protection of workers’ rights. Habibuddin Junaidi, Central Chairman All Pakistan Trade Unions Organisation, said after the privatisation, the employment situation in the commercial banks had eroded, now no worker is appointed in commercial banks at the lower cadre and only officers are offered employment on contact basis, which has eroded the trade unionism in the banks. No trade union exists in the banks in private sector and trade union membership in the privatised commercial banks have also minimized.
Manzoor Razi of Railway Workers Union said the corruption in railways had brought this national institution at the verge of collapse. He said PR was profitable till 1975-76 till establishment of National Logistic Cell (NLC). Besides the passenger transport, PR was also carrying cargo from Karachi to other parts of the country and earning profits. He said anywhere in the world without cargo service no railway passenger service could be profitable. The entire cargo service of railway was given to NLC during military regime of General Zia, since then the railway was facing losses, he deplored. Similarly, he said during Pervaiz Musharraf’s regime, the then Railway Minister General (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi bought Chinese engines, which were of inferior quality and all became inoperative within one year. On the contrary, German engines have been efficiently working for over 25 years. Now the losses of railways have increased manifold because there is shortage of engines. Shaikh Majeed of People’s Unity of PIA said the national airline was facing crisis due to non-professional members of management, who were indulged in corruption and inefficiency. He said whenever professionals are made bosses of the airline it has progressed in the past. Majeed demanded all the inefficient members of the top management should be replaced with efficient ones. PIA should be provided with a bailout package and at least 25 new aeroplanes should be inducted in the airline to make it efficient and profitable. He also called for establishment of a separate ministry of transport which should run PIA instead of the present Ministry of Defence. Latif Mughal of KESC said the power crisis in the country was deliberately created by the private sector management of the utility. He said in winters the total demand for power was 17,000 megawatt (MW), where as it increased to 19,000 MW in summers. The total installed capacity in the country is 20,000 MW, which is sufficient for the entire country. “Then why there is so severe load shedding?” he asked. Mughal said the power generation companies in the private sector tried to run their units on natural gas, which was in short, whereas they avoided running the power generation units on furnace oil. He said all the KESC units were not generating power on full installed capacity, whereas it was getting 750MW from WAPDA’s system. prCourtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk