Fed up of protesting for the past eight months to get their services restored, two “non-core” employees of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) attempted self-immolation during another peaceful demonstration staged by the power utility’s workers on Friday.
Demanding their jobs back since early 2010, the protesting workers – led by the KESC Mazdoor Ittehad (labour union) – were staging a protest in front of the KESC head office to show solidarity with the employees laid off by the power utility.
The two dejected workers, identified as Shafee and Khalid, set themselves on fire but were rescued by the other protesters and sent to the hospital.
The protesting employees had lost their jobs last year when the KESC dismissed at least 500 employees and over 4,000 employees were put in the surplus list by the company’s management.
The two workers said that they had no option left after the series of protests which proved fruitless. “The government and political parties are only making hollow promises for our rights while giving a free hand to the foreign management of KESC, which has nothing to do with the woes of its workers,” they said.
Addressing the protesters at the demonstration, KESC CBA Union Chairman Ikhlaq Ahmed said that hundreds of their colleagues were being forced to obtain Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS) packages while being threatened of termination from jobs without any compensation.
“Neither the judiciary nor the government have so far taken the employees’ issue seriously,” he said, vowing to continue the peaceful protest until the demands are met.
Ahmed further said that the KESC workers would also stage a protest during the visit of the Chief Justice of Pakistan to Karachi.
Speaking on the occasion, KESC People’s Workers Union General Secretary Lateef Mughal alleged that the Abraaj-led KESC management is playing the role of the East India Company in Pakistan. “The foreign management is deliberately trying to keep the industries and commercial activities closed through prolonged power breakdowns,” he added.
The KESC, meanwhile, condemned the protests and termed the self-immolation bid as “sensational tricks”.
In a statement, the power utility stated that a minority of labour union activists, who have already been dismissed on disciplinary grounds, were behind the acts.
“These elements had not only failed to establish their cases against the VSS but also lost sympathy of fellow employees as well as the society in general by adopting highhanded attitude towards simple trade union issues,” it was said.
According to the KESC, from the start the labour union has been carrying out sabotaging and disruptive tactics instead of advocating their points on the negotiation table legally. “The former union office bearers, whose term as CBA had expired many months ago, were trying to get it extended through futile pressure building and now they had added elements of political emotions and sensation by staging a farce of self-immolation show,” it was stated in the press release.
The KESC claimed that over 3,000 of the 4,500 nominated non-core employees had already accepted the VSS offers which offered them an average payout of Rs 1.2 million per worker, the maximum of which is over Rs. 5 million. “The unscrupulous elements had been trying hard to stop more non-core employees from accepting this scheme by misguiding them through theatrical acts in order to linger on with their vested interests,” it was stated.
Reiterating its stance that neither any worker was dismissed under VSS nor any employee sacked in routine without adequate and legal evidence for involvement in criminal activities, the KESC demanded the authorities to make all efforts to pre-empt any hurdles in the way of smooth functioning of the utility in its responsibility to meet the power needs of 20 million people.
