The janitorial staff, student body and some faculty members at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on Monday held a protest demonstration against withholding of one month salaries of janitors and the non-existence of any labour laws for the janitors working at the university, Pakistan Today has learnt.
HISTORY:
Since the start of this academic year, the LUMS administration has been at the receiving end of some heavy criticism at the hands of its student body and some members of the faculty over indiscriminate violation of labour policies, especially with regards to the janitorial staff.
The issue dates back to September 2012 when the student body raised a voice for the rights of janitors, who were being paid a salary of Rs 7,500 per month, well below the minimum wage of Rs 9,000. In addition, the students demanded that the university administration enter into a contractual agreement with the lower staff; in essence providing job security to the underprivileged part of the LUMS community so that they were not laid off without a notice period and were entitled to Employees’ Old-Age Benefits (EOBI).
The administration took notice of the protest and called for an open house session in which the Vice Chancellor (VC) heard the grievances of the students and tried to come to an agreement to pacify the situation.
JANITORS FIRED:
Sources in the student body told Pakistan Today, that the administration eventually accepted the demand of paying the janitorial staff the minimum wage but the redressal came at a cost. In order to equalise its expenses, they laid off around 25 janitors- a move that outraged some students who saw the dismissal as an outright violation of labour laws and human rights.
A well-placed source among the faculty told Pakistan Today that the redundant janitors saved the university a meagre sum of Rs 176,000 per month only, but took away the livelihood of dozens of families.
“Yes they agreed to pay them the minimum wage, but made redundant around 30 janitors, thereby spending the same amount of money they were doing so previously,” said Asghar Leghari, a concerned law major, while talking to Pakistan Today.
“The administrations does not own the decision as its own because they have outsourced the janitorial staff to an independent contractor, and claim that the contractor took the decision to fire them,” said Mughees Jamal, another student actively raising a voice for the rights of the less privileged.
FROZEN SALARIES:
Following the lay-off, the administration changed their contractor. During the transition, one month salaries of janitors had been frozen owing to a “technicality”, a source seeking anonymity told Pakistan Today.
The backlog had not been cleared by the administration for months, putting the janitors through misery, until yesterday when the students and janitors staged a sit-in outside the VC’s office to protest against the injustice. Eventually, janitors were paid their dues yesterday, in what turned out to be a small victory for those fighting for the cause.
However, most believe that the issue is not just limited to frozen salaries and their eventual release, but is much deeper than that.
“MBM, our new contractors, estimated the number of janitors required for the expanding student body to be around 105 but our administration insists that they need only 75,” said Jamal. He was of the view that this understaffing puts extra pressure on the existing workers, who were already surviving at the mercy of the administration, not knowing whether they would still have a job the next day.
FACULTY PERSPECTIVE:
Assistant Professor in the Law and Policy Department Asad Farooq while talking to Pakistan Today said, “The university is expanding, the student body has more than doubled and yet somehow we need less janitors than before”. Redundancy, according to him, was a major problem. However, he was more concerned with the fact that this part of the LUMS community had “no written contract” and were “sacked at will” without any notice period.
The major demand of the LUMS community regarding contractual agreements with janitors remains unmet, despite the administration facing severe pressure from all quarters.
According to Professor Farooq, the administration has been dragging the issue for months, making false promises and hiding behind the independent contractors for not being able to materialise their promises.
“This is classical neoliberal policy right in front of you, where the employer can do whatever they want. It has become like a master-slave relationship and even before we go into the legality of it, we must look at it from an ethical perspective,” he said. “Is this acceptable to us as a community? This is downright exploitation where the workers remain under constant pressure over fear of losing their job the next day,” he said. “We’re not setting a good example for our students,” he added. “They are planning to lay off several more workers,” said Farooq.
FIRING-IN-STEPS:
Several female janitors, while talking to Pakistan Today, said that instead of directly firing them, their contractors had come up with a new way to get rid of them. “They tell us we’re being transferred to work at Hyperstar (a super market which uses the same contractor, MBM) against our will. When we go there, the place is already full and there is no work for us. Eventually, in a couple of days we are laid off,” they said.
A large number of students had gathered outside the Pepsi Dining Centre last evening to protest against a complete lack of labour laws for a certain class of LUMS employees.
When asked for his take on the matter, LUMS General Administration Director Col Amir flatly refused to answer any question saying the matter was an internal one and there was no need for anyone outside the LUMS community to fret over it.