KARACHI: Like other cities of the country, a large protest rally was taken out by the employees of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) in metropolis against the proposed privatisation of the national-flag carrier.
The labour unions and organisations observed a ‘black day’ yesterday to express solidarity with the striking workers of PIA and to condemn the killing of their two workers and insisted the ending of the anti-labour privatisation policy.
On the occasion, National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) and Home Based Women Workers Federation (HBWWF) arranged protests and rallies in Karachi, Hyderabad, Hub, Lahore, Sanghar, Multan, Faisalabad and other towns and cities. In Karachi the activists of the NTUF and HBWWF staged a rally at the Karachi Press Club led by NTUF Central President Rafiq Baloch and HBWWF General Secretary Zahra Khan.
A large number of workers belonging to different industries, as well as, the home based working women and trade union leaders attended the rally. An effigy of privatisation was also torched. Later the rally also joined the other rallies of workers at the KPC.
Addressing the rally, the speakers said the government with its anti-labour policies has sent the whole industrial and trade process of the country to a crisis state. They said the government was working with its full force to implement its anti-democracy, anti-worker and anti-people policies. The recent example of the policy was the plan to privatise the PIA on the behest of imperialistic institutions and the workers of not only the PIA but entire nation were protesting against it. To suppress the protest of PIA workers, the government brutally used power, which resulted in the death of two workers and injuries to many others. This shameful act revived dark memories of the dictatorship era.
The speakers claimed the corrupt administration was responsible for the poor performance of these institutions and the workers were not involved in harming these institutions and instead have been opposing with full force against privatisation and other anti-labour steps of the government. They said only 16 percent of the PIA revenue is spent on its employees’ salaries. They said so far two bail-out packages were given to the PIA, one in the year 1971 and other recently to purchase new aircrafts as the present government in two and half years has given PIA Rs 14 billion out of which Rs 7.5 billion were spent on the purchase of new aircrafts.
They said currently PIA was paying a tax of Rs 8.5billion annually and the rulers had been spreading false propaganda about the losses of the PIA but the fact was that when in 1954 the institution was established, the government investment in it was just Rs 50 billion, however, due to the work of its employees, its assets are worth Rs 700 billion today and it contributes Rs 1.25 billion annually to the national economy.
