Tenure jobs: Clerks threaten to boycott elections

Speaking at a demonstration in support of the cause, APCA members demanded that the ECP immediately cancel its notification.

The protesters carried placards with their demands prescribed on them. They shouted slogans against the ECP and in favour of the Punjab government.

Moosa said that all APCA divisional presidents will meet on Tuesday (today) to discuss strategy for their country-wide protests.

On March 1, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had announced that 100,000 contract employees in the Punjab in grades 1-16 would be regularised. However, a few days later, the ECP had declared it illegal and cancelled it calling it “a political stunt”. It had also sought a report from the government to show how this did not amount to pre-poll rigging.

This triggered disruption among contract employees, who protested against the ECP for “delaying the regularisation process”.

They have now announced country-wide protests starting from Dera Ghazi Khan division.

Moosa said that clerks would not vote in the next general election. He also said that clerks had vowed not to return to work until they were regularised in service.

He said they were not asking for new jobs.

“We don’t understand why the ECP is hampering the process. The Punjab government did not give us [new] jobs. It just regularised contract employees who have been serving for years.”

APCA general secretary Muhammad Sarfraz said that the workers to be regularised had been selected through the Punjab Public Service Commission.

He said the protest movement would be launched in coordination with all APCA provincial heads.

“In Punjab at least, no APCA member will report for work,” he said.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Aslam Khan, one of the protesters, said that the ECP must consider the fact that most of the employees being regularised had been working on contract for more than 10 years.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2013.