End of long rule

Islamabad-In a major upset, the Capital Development Authority Labour Union (Amanullah Khan Group) defeated CDA Mazdoor Union (Ch Muhammad Yaseen Group) in CBA Union referendum 2017, also marking an end to over ten years of the latter’s rule.

According to unofficial results, Amanullah Group defeated Ch Yaseen Group by 549 votes. A total of 11,379 voters exercised their right to vote out of 12,228 total voters. Amanullah Khan Group bagged 5,964 votes while Ch Yaseen Group could secure only 5,415 votes.

CDA employees from BS-1 to BS-16 are voters of the union. Ch Yaseen Group was in power since 2005 and the defeat also marked an end to the group’s twelve years of rule. Amanullah Khan secured the seat of General Secretary of the union with Syed Shabab Bukhari as CBA president. CDA Labour Union (Amanullah Khan Group) contested the election with a stated mission of work for the welfare of CDA employees.

The polling started at 9 am and continued till 5 pm. There were only 350 female voters while majority of the voters belonged to the sanitation directorate of the CDA. A total of 32 polling stations were set up for the purpose. The polling was supervised by officials of National Industrial Relations Commission.

The referendum is held after every three years but it could not be held in 2015 due to introduction of local bodies’ system in the federal capital as nothing was sure about the bifurcation of the CDA departments at that time.

Ch Yaseen Group has several workers’ welfare initiatives to its credit as it opposed bifurcation of the CDA after the LG elections. It termed the bifurcation of CDA as an attempt on the rights of the workers.

The group led by Ch Muhammad Yaseen also struggled for temporary employees of the CDA and got assurance from the management that the services of temporary employees from BPS-1 to BPS-16 would not be terminated but their case would be submitted to the Cabinet Division. The group also opposed outsourcing the sanitation services and held many protest demonstrations in this regard.

However, as many believe, Ch Yaseen committed a blunder by presenting himself as the first ever mayor of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad that damaged his cause and position among the CDA workers.

Meanwhile, the supporters of the CDA Labour Union group started jubilations over their win.