PAKISTAN TELECOMMUNICATION LIMITED

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is proud to be

Pakistan’s most reliable and largest converged services carrier providing all
telecommunications services from basic voice telephony to data, internet, video-
conferencing and carrier services to consumers and businesses all over the
country. Whether it is an office in the largest city of Pakistan or a home in a small
village, (PTCL) is present in every corner of Pakistan to serve its customers.

At the beginning of their operation, they were claiming that they could achieve
their vision by having “An organizational environment that fosters
professionalism, motivation and quality”. As one CEO of the organizations has
also said that;

“Today, for millions of people, we demand instant access to new products and
ideas. More importantly, we want them for their better living standards with
increased values in an ever-shrinking globe of ours. We are setting free the spirit
of innovation. PTCL is going to be your first choice in the future as well, just as it
has been over the past six decades”

Early worries:

In the early stages (PTCL) was contributing approximately 4 billion rupee in the
cumulative revenue of Pakistan. However, with the advancement of technology
and due to globalization more telecom companies entered in the Pakistan
territory to earn profit. However, due to some political forces and other pressure
groups exerted forces on government to privatize PTCL and its biggest bidders
were OGAR Telecom of United Arab Emirates. And government of that time
privatized the PTCL,

After the privatization, PTCL has earned total revenue of 61 billion for 2007-08
financial years.

The management that is running ptcl consists of Ali Jan President & Chief
Executive Officer, haroon Shafi Deputy CEO PTCl, Muhammad Noman
S.E.V.P (Finance) / Chief Financial Officer (C.F.O), Yasir kyani Chief
Information Officer (C.I.O), Mohammad Aisal Chief Technical Officer
(C.T.O), Syed Asad S.E.V.P (HR / Admin & Procurement).

Employee’s development:
PTCL employees are a great asset not only for the company but also for the
country. Their marvelous potential is yet to be exploited. Their skills need to be
developed, their expertise need to be updated for which training and
development department is at their disposal to cater their training needs. Training
and development team would never miss an opportunity to contribute towards
the betterment of the company. Training and Developments is playing an
essential role in changing PTCL from a government sector organization to
corporate sector company. They consider every employee of the company as
their customer and firmly believe that meeting their expectation would help us
achieve customer satisfaction. We look forward to your input for making our
endeavors more effective.

After that the PTCL was privatized by the government its workers continue to
dispute how the actual sale took place and the legitimacy of the Arabs now
running the company. Their successful strike is a big setback for the International
Financial Institutions (IFIs), On the other hand it is a victory for all those forces in
Pakistan who want to assert people’s sovereignty, resist the dictates of capitalist
imperialism and transform state and society. It is important to accord the PTCL
workers struggle the recognition it deserves, in particular because the euphoria
that gripped many Pakistanis at various points since March 9, 2007, has started
to ebb away.

Employee benefits and compensations:

(PTCL) was offering no. of benefits to its employees like PTCL’s President/CEO;
Mr. Ali Jan announced five academic scholarships per year for employees so
that they could pursue their career of choice by obtaining higher education at any
university with Pakistan. PTCL would bear the full tuition costs and living
expenses of those awarded these scholarships. PKR 1.5Million was announced
focusing on the education of the special people.

Strike over the pay scale:

Since the privatization of PTCL, the company remained encircled by various

controversies and disputes, mainly due to bad management by PTCL
administration and lack of interest from Government. Competition from cellular
companies has brought down the net profit of PTCL from Rs. 29 billion before
privatization to mere Rs. 10 billion now. Before privatization of PTCL,
Government had announced that after the company would give facilities to
employees, upgrade their pay scales, and increase their allowances but the
promise had not seen the light of the day yet.
Nothing good came in the way for PTCL. Employees were on countrywide
protest and they are going to continue this series until their demands are not met.
The bad thing is that unified pay scale (UPS) is going to effect majority of
employees, as high as 21,000.

PTCL employees think that UPS is an effort by PTCL administration to degrade

employees from their permanent status to the contractual one. So they protested
and closed their operation about three weeks. After that management took a step
forward to negotiate with the employee unions. So management sent SEVP
Finance to put a dialogue with the unions and commented on the UPS he spoke
the following words.

“This package is for the benefit of workers and those opposing it are misleading
the entire work force without being fully aware of its salient features and
benefits”.

But that statement does not affect the employees. However, employees carry on
protests as they thought this is a total drama instead of any serious attitude from
PTCL administration.

On the very next day Employees Union’s deputy chief Shakeel Akram, central
joint secretary Hamza and central vice-chairman Ghaffar Shaikh said at a
workers' gathering that the UPS scheme was a threat to job security of regular
employees.

They would not like to be governed by the private company's rules as per
agreement between the union and the management and vowed to continue strike
till their demands were accepted, And eventually after three week’s continuous
strike ptcl management agreed to compensate the workers.

A meeting between the PTCL management and representatives of Employee

Union was held at the PTCL headquarters and a memorandum of understanding
was signed.

And private news channel reported late night (July 30, 2008) that dialogues
between PTCL administration and PTCL Workers Union reached to a conclusive
agreement. Main points of agreement are

• Strike will be over

• 35 percent increment in salary for regular employees (In effect from July
1, 2008)
• 8,000 contract employees will be promoted to regular employment
• Regular employees will get all benefits but no pension (retirement fund)
• Salary increment for contract employees will be decided by a committee of
eight members (5 from Workers’ Union and 3 from PTCL
administration)
Welcome news for Telecom sector and Pakistan. And we must appreciate PTCL
administration for taking positive turn, though it was little late… but all is well that
ends well.

Government’s Role in PTCL crisis:

Previous government badly failed to face the press and public when they were
asked about the benefits of Privatization, along with the added concessions given
to OGAR Telecom for buying most valued corporate entity of Pakistan.

Government in a recent announcement said that it will discuss the issue in

parliament to investigate the alleged scandalous privatization of the Pakistan
Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) by the former government.

What is unified package?

PTCL administration decided that all employees of the company will have to sign
a new contract and they will have to accept all new rules and working regulations
or they can and get out of the company very calmly. New contract, which is
named as “Unified Pay Scale” reached PTCL employees through a notification
last day.

Discussion Question

Q1: What are the early worries faced by PTCL?

ANSWER:

Although (PTCL) is a big giant in the telecom sector but some are the
problem faced by (PTCL). In the early stages (PTCL) was contributing
approximately 4 billion rupee in the cumulative revenue of Pakistan.
However, with the advancement of technology and due to globalization
more telecom companies were entering in the Pakistan territory to earn
profit. However, due to some political forces and other pressure groups
exerted forces on government to privatize PTCL and its biggest bidders were
OGAR Telecom of United Arab Emirates.

Q2: what are the basic benefits that PTCL management was
offering to their employees?

ANSWER:

(PTCL) was offering no. of benefits to its employees like PTCL’s

President/CEO; Mr. Ali Jan announced five academic scholarships per year
for employees so that they could pursue their career of choice by obtaining
higher education at any university with Pakistan. PTCL would bear the full
tuition costs and living expenses of those awarded these scholarships. PKR
1.5Million was announced focusing on the education of the special people.
And 35% increment in the salary of regular employees.

Q3: What procedures they were adopting to develop their

employees?

ANSWER:

They were providing training to their employees about the new technology
and new procedures. Their Training and development team never miss an
opportunity to contribute towards the betterment of the company. Training
and Developments is playing an essential role in changing PTCL from a
government sector organization to corporate sector company. They consider
every employee of the company as their customer and firmly believe that
meeting their expectation would help us achieve customer satisfaction. We
look forward to your input for making our endeavors more effective.

Q4: What was the basic reason behind the strike?

ANSWER:

The basic reason behind the strike was “Unified Pay Scale(UPS)”. PTCL
employees think that UPS is an effort by PTCL administration to degrade
employees from their permanent status to the contractual one. So they
protested and closed their operation about three weeks. After that
management took a step forward to negotiate with the employee unions.

Q5: How management resolved that problem?

ANSWER:

Management took a step forward to negotiate with the employee unions. So

management sent SEVP Finance to put a dialogue with the unions and
commented on the “UPS” and he spoke the following words.

“This package is for the benefit of workers and those opposing it are
misleading the entire work force without being fully aware of its salient
features and benefits”.

But that statement does not affect the employees. However, employees carry
on protests as they thought this is a total drama instead of any serious
attitude from PTCL administration. So on the next day they negotiated with
the union’s term and conditions.

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology

Human Resource Management

CASE STUDY
Employees Strike in PTCL
Submitted To:

Mrs. Komal

Submitted By:

Shakeel Nawaz

Jameel Abdullah

Muhammad Hammad

Date: 24/12/2009