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Posts tagged with: Labor
May 15, 2010    |      Comments Off on An Election Pretense

An Election Pretense

An election is taking place in Faisalabad for Punjab Assembly today. There are three more bye elections in other areas of Punjab. All are taking place after the resignations of the members of parliament due to their fake degrees of graduation submitted to Election Commission during the 2008 general election. It took two years before the Supreme Court took up the cases and several of these accused opted to resign instead of fighting their cases.

Two of those who resigned are contesting again. A natural division of these two is shared by the two parties of the rich, the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz. Ajmal Asif contesting from Faisalabad is from PMLN and Jamshed Dasti from PPP. Both of them are allowed by the courts to contest against. What a mockery of the justice. They resigned from their seats because they had cheated the Election Commission and the people in general. The cheaters are contesting again because at present the condition for the illegibility of a candidate to be a graduate is gone.

This is just one aspect of these bye elections. The elections are contested every where with full state sponsorship of the candidates from the respective governing political parties. The rich candidates are violating all the code of conduct that Election Commission has laid down for candidates before the elections.
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Mar 17, 2010    |       5 comments

PC Hotel Workers Strike – Day 21

The protest by PC Workers continues in the basement of the Pearl Continental Hotel where over 150 union employees are holding fort asking three basic demands. Reinstatement of Four sacked employees (PC Four), The PC Management to recognize the union and third is to come to the negotiation table. It has been 21 days and the situation is not getting better. A protest is being planned at PIDC tomorrow at 4:00pm called by a large spectrum of left-wing parties to come forth in unison. Action for a Progressive Pakistan obtained fresh pictures of the protesting workers, i share here

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Read the detailed fact sheet on this dispute and then support these protestors by sIgning the PC Workers Petition to The Hashwani Group

Mar 16, 2010    |       11 comments

PC Hotel Workers Strike update – 20 Days and counting

There are only about 140 people left in the basement in their 20th day of protest at the PC. On Sunday evening about 30 to 40 went home due to sickness or some other emergent reason and were not allowed to return to the basement and in their astute attitude the PC management is not budging from their position. The workers’s current demands are basically asking them to come to the negotiating table and do not fire the PC Four.

Since the last few days the PC management has restored to video taping these protesters while they are eating food. These protesters being holed up in the PC basement consume food from the hotel and the management prefers to video tape them eating to humiliate them that – you dare eat our food and then you talk about unions. The Human Resources Director fighting against these protesting workers is a retired Major Zia Jan who came to the PC after busting a union at the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC). Major Zia recently told the striking workers that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for fighting the PC.
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