The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the federal cabinet on Wednesday announced laying off all the 9,350 remaining employees of the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) with a golden handshake incentive worth around Rs 20 billion.
Presided over by the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh the ECC, however, decided to retain about 250 employees for a period of 3 months for the execution of the human resource rationalisation plan and completion of formalities.
This news sent a shock-wave among the workers and trade unions, which have been demanding the release of salaries of workers. They have announced to launch of a movement against the PTI government’s move. The social media is filled with speeches by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Asad Umer who had addressed PSM workers before coming into power. They had pledged to revive the Mills and not to retrench any workers. The social media posts indicate they have done the opposite.
At least two retrenched workers of PSM Ejaz Samoo and Muhammad Yunus Baloch reportedly suffered heart attacks and died due to the shocking news.
At least five trade union leaders of Pakistan Steel including Yaseen Jamro, who is the Chairman of the current Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) of the PSM (Steel Mills Insaf Union) were arrested while protesting outside the mills on Thursday and were later released by police.
According to the government, each employee would be paid an estimated amount of Rs 2.3 million.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan on March 13, 2020, asked the federal government to lay off all the redundant employees and appoint new people if it wanted to keep PSM running.
Established by former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with financial and technological support from the former Soviet Union in 1973 the Pakistan Steel Mills was once the largest industrial mega-corporation complex producing steel for industrial purposes. The project was formally launched by former Military dictator General Ziaul Haq on 15 January 1985.
Having a production capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of steel Pakistan Steel Mills is spread out over an area of 7,550 hectares (18,660 acres) including 4,205 ha (10,390 acres) for the main plant, 3,266 ha (8,070 acres) for the township and 81 ha (200 acres) for the 110 MG water reservoir. In addition, it has leasehold rights over an area of 3,043 ha (7,520 acres) for the quarries of limestone and dolomite in the Makli and Jhimpir areas of the Thatta district. (For further details pl. visit: Pakistan Steel’s History.)
The PSM, which has been facing many crises since the 1990s stopped its commercial operations in June 2015 without formulating any human resource plan for its 14,753 employees which has since come down to 9,350 in 2019.
Despite its non-functional status, the fate of such a large number of employees remained undeclared as they have been demanding their dues since 2015.
During General Pervaiz Musharraf’s era, the federal government tried to privatise it, but the Supreme Court of Pakistan stopped its sale.
I can recall that I wrote a feature in monthly Newsline in its May 2006 issue with the title The Grand Steel Steal, in which I highlighted the military government’s design to sell an important national asset.
Although it was an inevitable decision on part of the government as it is unable to pay huge amounts of salaries to the employees, who are virtually kept redundant due to the non-functioning of the corporation since 2015. The successive governments had failed to revive the Steel Mills, which needed huge capital investment. Once the Sindh Government had shown interest to buy the Mills, but it backed out due to unknown reasons.
