Sacked former employees of Philip Morris Pakistan, Frontier Sugar Mills and Pakistan Tobacco Company on Tuesday took part in a procession and staged a protest outside the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Legislative Assembly building to demand their reinstatement, according to a story in the newspaper Dawn.
The protesters were led by, among others, the Mazdoor Kisan Party spokesman Shakeel Wahidullah Khan.
Wahidullah was quoted as saying that the employees were sacked because they had tried to set up worker unions and because they had demanded their due rights from the managements concerned.
The employees had served those organisations for 15 to 30 years. They had spent the prime of their lives in those industries and played vital roles in boosting the businesses of the owners, but they had been sacked without being told why, he added.
Meanwhile, the Mehnat Kash Labour Federation president Abrarullah said that children of the employees had been expelled from their schools and workers had been deprived of medical treatment. And the only ‘fault’ of the employees, he said, had been to try to register worker unions.