LAHORE - Hundreds of Wapda workers took out a protest rally under the aegis of Hydro Electric Central Labour Union CBA from Bakhtiar Labour Hall against skyrocketing prices of petrol, diesel, gas and electricity on Wednesday.
The workers raised slogans against the government’s economic and financial policies which have caused mass unemployment in the country due to electricity loadshedding. They said that the government has not constructed Hydel and Coal Thermal Power Stations, instead resorting to Rental Power which had raised the price of electricity manifold.
The procession was led by General Secretary of the Union Khurshid Ahmed along with Maqsood Alam Qureshi, Dilawar Khan, Nadeem Sohail, Doctor Muhammad Ramzan, Muhammad Khalid, Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah and others. The protestors were carrying National and Red Flags and chanted slogans against price hike, unemployment and privatization policy on the behest of IMF.
The protesters marched through main Roads and staged a sit-in at Lakshmi Chowk in support of their demands.
While addressing the rally, the office bearers urged workers to continue their struggle for establishing an egalitarian society and demanded of all the Political Parties to include Labour Issues in their Election manifestos. They also demanded of the President and Prime Minister to resolve the Balochistan Issue and review Industrial Relation Ordinance 2011. Later, the workers held a press conference and welcomed the recent agreement between the union and management of NTDC for raising Danger Allowance to Rs5000 per month and up-gradation of their pay scales after ten years of service.