LWMC hiring on senior posts irks workers

LAHORE :Lahore Waste Management Company’s (LWMC) decision of new hiring for senior slots has caused panic and depression among the existing employees who have spent years with the company and now waiting for promotions to next grades.

Recently, a number of promotion cases especially of the officers who were already working on higher seats on additional charge were sent to LWMC Managing Director but instead of promoting the officers he decided to go for new hiring for senior slots in the company.

Sources in LWMC claimed that section 8.6 of LWMC’s HR manual clearly described that in such situation positions would be internally advertised first but here this clause was violated and no internal advertisement was done. Sources claimed that HR Manual of LWMC stated under section 4.1.4 C clause II that when giving requirement of official to be hired no discrimination shall be done but in case of the recent advertisement, LWMC’s management did several discriminations such as the position of GM Operations was advertised on 22 July, 2016 and again on 29 November, 2017 with any experience whereas in the latest advertisement the requirement of post qualification experience was made 10 years.

The second discrimination was that the position of Sr Manager landfill was advertised on 25 August, 2016 requiring relevant experience of eight years but in the latest advertisement the experience was increased to 10 years as post qualification. Again on the position of Sr Manager Ops, the earlier advertisement issued in January 2015, its required experience was 6-8 years but in new advertisement this experience was increased to 10 years. Sources said due to the increase in post qualification experience of various jobs in new advertisement, several employees who reached the earlier criteria became ineligible.

Several senior officials of LWMC on anonymity talked with the scribe and expressed extreme reservations. One of them said that LWMC had not given any increment to its employees for the past three years and now they are going for new hiring. He said when the company is not fulfilling the rights of its current employees then how can it ensure rights of upcoming employees. Another official said the company was going for hiring over 3,500 sanitary workers. The basic idea behind this hiring was to take up the sanitary workers who are going to be freed by contractors when they will leave the city but the age limit in the advertisement is fixed at 45 years whereas around 40% of the current workers who are the prime target for the seats are above 45 years of age. In this way, thousands of sanitary workers will lose their jobs as the company has not announced any age relaxation for the current employees officially, he added.

Another official said that LWMC claimed in the advertisement that it is an equal opportunity employer but in the current lockdown situation most of the applicants are unable to come for walk in interviews or to apply online due to unavailability of internet due to several reasons. He said that the company should extend the interview/apply online dates until the Covid-19 pandemic is over or curtailed.

Another official said that there are officers within LWMC who are applying for seats under new advertisement but they have pending audit objections and questioned that is it right to open a new account before closing the previous account with audit objections?

He said LWMC’s promotion policy under section 3.3.2.1 said that if an employee is in the interim role for six months then the case should be put up to the talent and promotion committee for promotion of that individual into the role but this has not been done and new advertisement was made. In this way, the company’s management is violating its own policies and manuals.

LWMC Chairman Riaz Hameed while talking with the scribe over the issue said that as per government rules and regulations promotion to next seats was not a right of contractual employees. He said the advertisement provided equal opportunity to insider as well as outsiders to apply and those who meet the criteria would get the positions.

Answering a question about the age relaxation to sanitary workers, he said all those working in LWMC and are over the age of 45 will be considered in the new advertisement. He said the company would not reject any of the sanitary workers due to this reason.

Talking about violation of internal rules, policies and manuals, he said that LWMC would hire professional staff under a very transparent system and no internal policy or manual would be violated. He concluded that he came to know about the reservations of the applicants in the present situation so the company has postponed the entire hiring process until the lockdown is over.