PTCL plan to terminate contract employees sparks protest in Senate

A reported plan of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) management to terminate over 4,000 of its low-ranked contract employees and the government's inability to undo the move sparked a strong protest from the treasury members in the Senate here on Friday.
Minister of State for Telecommunication Division Ali Asjad Malhi told the House that the government could not force the PTCL either to hire or fire its employees as the entity had its own board of governors for taking such decisions.
"We (the government) can't influence PTCL whom to hire or fire... the entity is a public limited company and has its own board of governors for administrative decisions," Asjad said.
He was responding to a point of order raised by a Pakistan Muslim League (PML) Senator Gulshan Saeed who wanted to know whether the reported PTCL move to fire contract employees was true.
It was reported on Friday that the PTCL management had decided to fire over 4,000 of it contract employees. It had issued dismissal notices to them on Thursday.
Asjad's reply, indicating that the government had no plan to undo the PTCL management move, raged some more treasury senators and they termed it a negation of the commitment with the company's workers at the time of its privatisation in June this year.
As many as 26 percent of the PTCL shares were sold on June 18 this year. To avert workers' strike against the sell-off, the government had committed that it would ensure that the new management of the company did not fire any of its contract employees.
The government also gave the same assurance on the floors of both the National Assembly and the Senate to cool down the opposition.
Another PML Senator Kamil Ali Agha, the chief whip of the ruling party in the Upper House, reminded the government of its commitment and threatened that back out from its position would be resisted.
Though the matter was disposed of due to time constraints, the stance the government came out with was a clear sign that the PTCL management would go ahead with its decision unhindered.