KARACHI, 7 July — The government, through a presidential decree, has banned all kinds of trade union activities in its national airline, PIA, in a bid to help it resurrect itself from a deepening crisis. The order, passed late on Thursday night, also places restrictions on pilots, who had recently secured a new package of pay and perks for themselves.
But an official announcement here said the government had annulled all past contracts, had extended the suspension of unions, and officers associations, and had ended the special status which the airline employees had enjoyed so far. They will now be treated like ordinary government servants, and will have a limited right of appeal before service tribunals.
More importantly, the management in the organization, has been given sweeping powers to dismiss employees at will, and without recourse to courts. It can dispense with the services of any or all kinds of permanent or contract employees, revise their service terms, and withdraw facilities which have been allowed to them under the company law.
PIA, since its takeover as a national carrier, from a privately-owned airline, called Orient Airways in 1955, had always had a special pay package for its staff, which had enjoyed numerous benefits like medical, recreation, travel, etc. Though the Managing Director of the airline, Saeed Chaudhury, assured the staff later at night that no one will be sacked arbitrarily, and that no retrenchment is planned, his statement had failed to instill confidence among the staff. Unrest among them was clearly visible yesterday morning.
Pilots will be the worst affected. The airline chief dropped sufficient hint in his clarification that agreement on emoluments reached with the pilots will be reviewed. The pilots had recently resorted to industrial action which had dislocated the airline’s flight schedule, and had caused it a huge financial loss.
Officials in the Ministry of Defense in Islamabad believed that trade unionism had hampered the growth of the airline as a vibrant organization. Earlier, when Gen. Zia-ul Haq was president and martial law administrator of the country, a similar ban had been imposed on trade union activities. Hundreds of its employees were sacked which the Pakistan People’s Party government of Benazir Bhutto reinstated in 1989.
In another development, the Pakistan Bar Council, the apex organization of professional lawyers in the country, has served notice on former Law Minister Khalid Anwar to explain his conduct in the tape scandal which had recently rocked the country’s judiciary, and has forced two of the senior judges to quit.
A former Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, Rashid Aziz, wants to retire, while his colleague on the bench, Abdul Qayyum, has already been relieved of his responsibilities. Both of them were reprimanded by the Supreme Court for delivering a biased judgment against former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her jailed husband Asif Zardari.
