HYDERABAD, Oct 11: The administration and non-teaching staff of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS), Jamshoro, have locked horns over the issue of conditions of service with the workers demanding better perks and the administration issuing show-cause notices to four of them.

Office-bearers of the varsity’s welfare association held a press conference on Wednesday to demand regularisation of contractual employees, disbursement of leave encashment, grant of (employees’) son quota, housing scheme and removal of retired officers holding top positions in the institution.

They vowed to continue their protest until all their demands were met.

Liaquat University Staff Welfare Association (LUSWA) chairman Nazeer Hussain Qureshi and general secretary Saeed Ahmed Lashari told journalists at the local press club that retired officers including the vice chancellor, registrar, finance director, campus administrator and academic director were usurping the rights of those who were eligible for these posts. They urged the government to remove these officers as they had stopped paying attention to employees’ problems.

They said that LUMHS employees would start a four-day protest campaign from Oct 15 during which they would wear black armbands and hoist black flags on the varsity building.

“If these officers are not replaced with eligible and sincere ones by Oct 18, we will take to the street to stage rallies and sit-ins from the next day,” they added.

The workers’ leaders appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of the situation and help resolve their issues.

Taking serious notice of the workers’ planned agitation, the LUMHS administration in a statement issued show-cause notices to four LUSWA office-bearers and asked all non-teaching staff to perform their duties and keep themselves away from unlawful activities.

The statement said that the staff association had been established with the aim of providing social services to workers but its office-bearers had started blackmailing the authorities to achieve their “illegal personal goals”.

Regarding demands of workers, it said that the matter of leave encashment, regularisation of contractual employees and promotions were under active consideration and would be done after meeting legal formalities.

“The university authority will solve genuine problems but the office-bearers of LUSWA are trying to threaten the authority concerned to create a law and order situation in the university,” it said, adding that the university had taken a very serious notice of the attitude being adopted by office-bearers of LUSWA; and show-cause notices had been issued to four of them for their illegal activities.