grade-4 employees, while implementation on promised service structure of grade-5 to grade-17 paramedics was stopped and health professional allowance had also not been given. They demanded the government regularise employees of Boards of Management, daily wagers and work-charge employees in hospitals.
exploitative system: Working class has urged the policy makers to implement the principles of Dr Allama Iqbal, who yearned for abolishing exploitative system based on feudalism and capitalism, and establish an egalitarian society respecting the dignity of working class and peasants.
That is why Quaid-e-Azam had struggled for establishing a democratic welfare state based on equality and running national public utility entities, including electricity, railways, steel, and banks in public sector.
The present rulers should enforce these historic principles and learn from rich experience of People’s Republic of China which provides cheaper electricity to one billion consumers without outages. Instead of electricity privatisation, it should introduce reforms to raise its efficiency and develop hydel and gas fired thermal power station in public sector.
These demands were raised in a resolution passed in a meeting of Wapda workers held Monday at Bakhtiar Labour Hall, presided over by veteran trade union leader Khurshid Ahmed, General Secretary of Union. Rana Abdul Shakoor, Muzaffar Mateen, Sajid Kazmi, Maqsood Ahmed, Rana Muhammad Akram, Javed Ahmed and trade union representatives attended the meeting.
Khurshid Ahmed urged Wapda Authority to grant honoraria pay to employees on the principle of Equal Pay for Equal Work and expressed concern over the rising accidents of line staff due to unsafe working conditions and lack of provision of standard safety equipment and overburdening existing line staff due to ban on recruitment for years.
He demanded the prime minister to raise workers’ wages and pension at least 30 percent keeping in view high cost of living and fix minimum wage at Rs20,000. It decided to observe International Labour Day with fervour in support of the just demands of the working class.