PR LAHORE - The All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union has been declared the collective bargaining trade union for the period of three years with effect from March 21, 2017 for workers engaged in Wapda/Electricity Corporatised Companies.

The registrar of Nationwide Trade Unions, National Industrial (NIRC) Relations Commission of Pakistan issued a certificate to the union on Wednesday.

The union won the nationwide referendum in Wapda/Corporatised Companies conducted by the registrar of the Nationwide Trade Union by securing 103,553 votes through secret ballot. The other contesting trade union, All Pakistan Wapda Pegham Union, was defeated in the fifth referendum in a row.

Veteran trade union leader Khurshid Ahmed, general secretary of the union; Abdul Latif Nizamani, president; Gohar Taj, chairman; and Haji Ramzan Achakzai, joint president, said in a press statement that the union would continue to raise productivity of the largest national public utility and provide better services to more than 25 million electricity consumers all over the country. They said the union would work for welfare of workers doing hazardous work round the clock, struggle for an egalitarian society according to the vision of the Father of the Nation, defeat the sectarian and divisive forces, maintain national unity and work for a society free from ethnic and parochial forces.