LAHORE: Hundreds of Railway Workshop employees and members of the Railway Workers Union (CBA) held a demonstration in front of the Workshops Divisional Superintendent’s office on Wednesday to press certain demands, including: the provision of a service structure, regularisation and upgradation of current employees, and an end to the bundling and privatisation of Pakistan Railways, among others. Speaking at the protest, union leader Ashiq Jahangir said that the railways administration and political leaders have enacted anti-labor policies for past thirty years. Railways Minister Saad Rafique had promised workers a service structure as well as promotions. Changing technologies have impacted the nature of work at the workshops and, what seems to be, a permanent freeze on hiring, has left existing workers fatigued and overworked. In order to fill the gap in workforce, the Railways has been hiring skilled workers on temporary positions. “We demand that all TLA workers, workers hired under the Prime Minister’s Package and new inductees at the workshops be regularised and the existing conditions of the workshops be improved,” he said. Furthermore, he said that deduction of taxes from the salaries of grade four employees was inhumane and must be stopped immediately. Open-Line vice-president and All Pakistan Trade Union Federation leader Anwar Gujjar said that there were many issues facing the railways. He said that privatisation would inherently take away basic union rights from railway workers and allow for more contract labour to be enacted. Addressing the workers gathered in front of the divisional superintendent’s office, People Solidarity Forum activist Manzoor Hussain said that this was the location where well-known struggles against martial rule had begun in the past, and now the time had come for railway workers and others in the city to unite for their rights. He said that the workers movement had been divided into smaller groups was increasingly losing its strength due to vested interests and anti-labour policies. He said that PSF would work towards building a worker-solidarity campaign rooted in restoring the prestige and dignity of the worker movement. Other railway union leaders – president Sakhi Khan, secretary general Rana Saleem, Mustansar Jawed, Mian Anjum and Shahid Latif – also addressed the protesters. They lamented the overall increase in poverty and precariousness of railway workers and demanded that the government take notice of the plight of workers and help ease their miserable condition. Published in Daily Times, January 25th 2018.