LAHORE:The All Pakistan Train Drivers Welfare Association (APTDWA) is waiting for the release of all its leaders who were arrested in the aftermath of what can be described as the first major labour agitation in the tenure of Railways Minister Saad Rafique. The agitation started on July 22 and lasted for 18 hours before its end on July 23. It affected the schedule of trains across the country.

During the strike, 13 leaders of the association from Rawalpindi, Sukkur, Rohri, and Karachi were arrested, and cases were registered against 22 others reportedly on the order of Saad Rafique.

APTDWA Secretary General Shams Pervaiz says that four leaders from the Rawalpindi division were released on Friday night but two more leaders, Malik Farooq and Muhammad Iqbal from Rohri, are still in jail.

The train drivers started the agitation to press for their demands of an increase in mileage rates and pay scale and forcible retirement of sacked drivers involved in accidents so that they can receive pensions.

Association awaits release of arrested leaders before further line of action

The FIR against Iqbal and his comrades from the Lahore division is unique as states: “the strike of the workers is conspiracy against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). They attempted to damage the trust of China-Pakistan relations.” It says the drivers had caused distress to the passengers and had encouraged other drivers not to report on duty. Surprisingly, it has a clause of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) which prolonged the process of bail of the arrested drivers.

Now the APTD says that it would not negotiate any further until the cases against its drivers are dropped.

Shams Pervaiz says they (train drivers) did not go on strike rather they had taken voluntarily leaves to register their protest against the authorities. Complaining about the terrorism clauses, he says, “We have been serving this nation for over 40 years. These political leaders act like they’re angels. Are they going to issue us, the people of Pakistan, certificates of loyalty to the country?”

He complains that recently Punjab was blocked for three days but no political leader or activist was charged under the terrorism laws.

The train drivers’ agitation did not start suddenly as it’s a result of a long tussle between them and the railways authorities. Their leadership says that they had been in negotiations regarding the mileage rate of drivers since there was no overtime. After, a string of accidents last year, the trust had begun to erode between drivers and the administration. They say the accident in Landhi on Nov 3, 2016 marked the turning point. The same week, the chief executive officer (CEO) had promised to address the demands on pay scale and mileage within four weeks. But then the accident happened.

In recent episode, despite assurances from Railways General Manager (GM) Javaid Anwar that their just demands would be taken seriously, Irfan Iqbal, the secretary general of the Lahore Division of the train drivers association who had also attended meetings with the GM, was also be picked up by on Aug 7 and released on bail on Aug 12.

Before the drivers 18-hour long strike, the administration says, it had offered them to meet in Lahore but they refused which is why they were arrested.

“The administration had invited the leadership on 24th but they did not wait for that and they went for a strike so that naturally created a lot of issues,” says Arshad Ghafoor, the foreman from the loco shed in Lahore who filed the FIR against Iqbal.

“Now these drivers will report for duty and also face the cases launched against them. Had they come to the table, maybe they would have got a better response (from the authorities),” he adds.

The divide between drivers deepened with accidents occurring with regularity that brought some of the operational issues in the Pakistan Railways into the focus after years in neglect.

According to the drivers, the railways administration, last year, had engaged in negotiations with them to improve their pay scale to BPS-16 and mileage rate to deal with increasing burden on the drivers.

Following the train accident at Landhi, involving the Bahauddin Zakaria Express and Fareed Express, the talks broke down. After that the mistrust between both the parties kept increasing. After the accident, the drivers’ demands also included voluntary retirement of the drivers who were sacked for being involved in the accidents.

Ali Haider, the secretary general for the Sukkur Division, was arrested in Rohri on Nov 23 at night. He was released over the weekend on bail. He said the Anti-Terrorism Court judge had also commented that under the existing rules, strike was seen as a criminal act.

“How is that even fair? The rail is our mother, it feeds our kids and our families but the management refuses to listen to us. We continue our work during Ghulam Ahmed Bilour’s tenure under the worst circumstances. We never stopped our work. Why are we being branded terrorists now?” complains Haider.

The spokesperson for the Pakistan Railways says the administration is working on restructuring of nearly 80,000 workers. This process is being led by Maqsoodul Nabi, a recently retired railway man. He says the task is difficult because they have found 700 different classifications of labour.

“In the past we have seen various classes of labour use their power and numbers to get benefits or raises. This is the first time when we have finished these anomalies and are creating a formula to address these problems in a transparent manner. We are hopeful that by the end of this year, we can offer all the employees a guaranteed service structure.”

The APTDWA is still waiting for the release of all its leaders before taking a further line of action.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2017