HYDERABAD: Wapda workers staged a demonstration on Monday outside the office of Hesco Laar operation circle in Qasimabad in protest against retrenchment of five colleagues.

Office-bearers of All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union (CBA) Iqbal Ahmed Khan, Azam Khan, Hanif Khan, Allah Deen Kaimkhani and others, who led the protest, demanded immediate reinstatement of the five employees in the Hesco Laar operation circle.

They said that despite shortage of staff, employees were being sacked by officers on the basis of personal likes and dislikes and some employees’ failure to pay to the officers ‘monthly’, a euphemism for bribe in cash.

They said that officers accused the sacked employees of failing to meet recovery targets to justify their decision. The dismissal of experienced employees, who should rather be respected for their hard-work, was just condemnable, they said.

They rejected low recovery as pretext for their retrenchment and said the recovery targets pertained to only July-August period of last year, which had improved in subsequent months still they were dismissed.

The union leaders claimed that they had worked hard for the department over the last 30 years of their service but they were sacked with one stroke of pen. The sacked employees were also deprived of all monetary benefits in sheer violation of labour laws, they lamented.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2025

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