Pakistan: the PTCL strike and role of the PTUDC

After the struggle of the PTCL workers in Pakistan came to an end some on the left raised criticisms of the PTUDC comrades, insinuating they played a minor role. Here we present an account of the sterling work done by the PTUDC comrades, written by two PTCL workers active in the struggle, and supporters of the PTUDC. Instead of attacks these comrades deserve every bit of support they can get.
On August 2, 2005 The Dawn, one of the largest English language newspapers in Pakistan published the following news item.
“In a major shift in its policy, the Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd. (PTCL) Unions Action Committee here on Monday postponed its anti-privatisation protest following a deal with the management.
“…The office bearers of the committee also expressed their confidence in the ongoing privatisation process and their talks with the government.
“The Unions have assured full cooperation to Etisalat, the UAE Company which has bought 26 percent strategic shares of the PTCL on June 18. They said they would work hand in hand with the new management to make PTCL a more profitable organization…”

Not a single top leader of any of the unions of the PTCL has refuted this news item in the press. This is a tragic epilogue of such a bold and courageous strike by the telecommunications workers in Pakistan. It is also a betrayal and a crime on the part of the leadership of all the union leaders who have so shamefully capitulated to the regime and its policies.

However, this has not come as a surprise to the comrades of the PTUDC who had been in the forefront of the struggle, and all along had warned the workers of the danger of such a betrayal and tried to build up an opposition to such treachery. The PTCL stations where the PTUDC members were in greater numbers and had positions at a certain level of leadership is where the most militant actions were seen during the strike. Thanks to our Marxist education, we had anticipated such an outcome and did not fall into a servile attitude towards these “leaders”. We had all along put up an uncompromising stance and a position of irreconcilability in struggle.

Firstly, the unions were united not through any initiative of the leaders but were forced to unite due to the pressure of the workers from below. The leaders themselves were surprised by this “unexpected” militancy of the workers on the May 25 demonstration and rally in which the PTUDC comrades played an important role. To save their credibility the leaders formed an alliance, but without any clear programme or perspective. They had not even held a single meeting of the alliance before this rally took place. In spite of this, during the rally when the leaders tried to evade the question of the need to call a strike there was such uproar that they were forced to call one. This terrified the regime, so much so that twice it had to announce the deferment of the privatisation. They announced concessions and tried to divert the movement.

On June 3, the leaders signed a vague and deceptive agreement with the management and proclaimed a victory. The PTUDC comrades exposed the real meaning of this agreement and pressed the leaders to call an all-out strike and close down the whole PTCL network. They also forewarned the workers of the deceptive nature of this agreement and explained that the regime was just playing for time to buy off the leaders and to break the strike. But a number of leaders had already reached a compromise and had sold out secretly to the state.

Thus, another betrayal had taken place and the strike was losing steam. The PTUDC comrades had envisaged this and started to make efforts to prevent the workers from being demoralised and prepare them for future struggles. During the strike the PTUDC worked on three different fronts to strengthen the strike and gain victory.

Firstly, it was in the PTCL itself where the comrades were involved in organizing pickets and corner meetings in and around the PTCL installations. This was linked with solidarity campaigns to engage other trade union federations and workers in other sectors of industry and the economy in this struggle of the PTCL workers. The unions and workers we were able to reach were from the following sectors:

1.    Water and Power (WAPDA) workers.
2.    Pakistan Steel.
3.    Postal Workers.
4.    Railway workers.
5.    Road Transport workers.
6.    Pakistan International Airlines workers.
7.    Banking sector employees.
8.    Civil service and Clerical workers.
9.    Hotel and catering services workers.
10.    Lawyers’ Associations.
11.    Hospital and Paramedical workers.
12.    Television and Broadcasting workers.
13.    Oil and refinery workers.
14.    Cement industry workers.
15.    Textile and garment industry workers.

Several other sections of workers in private and public sectors were approached to join the struggle. Although the official and compromised trade union leaders refused and even tried to prevent workers from joining the protest, thousands of workers defied them and participated in the protest rallies and demonstrations organized by the PTUDC across Pakistan.

Between May 25 and June 18 the PTUDC organized rallies and demonstrations in several cities and towns of Pakistan and Kashmir. These protests were held in front of PTCL installations and in city and town centres in the following places: Peshawar, Malakand, Batkhela, Charsadda, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Nowshera, Mardan, Wah, Taxila, Fateh Jang, Attock, Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot, Bagh, Khaigala, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Lahore, Kasur, Okara, Multan, Faisalabad, Sadiqabad, Rahimyarkhan, Kotaddu, Dear Ghazi Khan, Jampur, Taunsa, Gotki, Rohri, Dadu, Khairpur, Thatta, Badin, Mirpur Khas, Hyderabad, Karachi, Khuzdar, Kalat and Quetta. In some cities five or more rallies were organized. The rallies in Quetta, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Hyderabad, and Karachi received extensive television coverage on national TV networks.

Secondly we produced five pamphlets and leaflets during this struggle. More than 200,000 were distributed throughout the country. These pamphlets provided not just agitational material, but also a thorough analysis of the crisis of capitalism, an explanation of why the system demands privatisation and then went on to explain how and why these barbaric policies can only be decisively stopped once and for all through the overthrow of this system through a socialist revolution. This material got an enthusiastic response from the PTCL workers and it also served to enhance their political understanding in the heat of the struggle.

The third front of our intervention was in Parliament. This was lead by comrade Manzoor Ahmed, Member National Assembly and president of the PTUDC. After holding a meeting of the main trade unions in his parliamentary office immediately after the strike and forging a strategy for developing the struggle in the capital, he made a whirlwind tour of most of the provincial capitals of Pakistan to give support and solidarity to the PTCL workers in their struggle. On May 28 he flew into Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. Here the workers had come to receive him at the airport. From the airport he was taken in a huge procession with red flags to the headquarters of the PTCL. Here he addressed hundreds of workers present. There was a thunderous applause and the workers were elated and some even had tears in their eyes. This was the first time ever that striking workers in this far-flung and primitive province had been visited by an MP, and a Punjabi one at that, who had come to give his full support and fight with them till the end. After the mass meeting a labour conference was held in Quetta city where all the main unions were represented and they pledged together with comrade Manzoor their full support for the PTCL workers.

On May 29 he flew to Karachi where a similar meeting was held and the workers were thrilled by the fiery speech of comrade Manor. On May 30 he was accompanied by two other left wing MPs and supporters of the PTUDC, comrades Qamar Zaman Kaira and Comrade Tanvir Ashraf Kaira on a visit to the PTCL headquarters in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab. Here again they were received by hundreds of cheering PTCL workers. During their speeches they were interrupted by a tremendous applause at almost every sentence they spoke.

In the evening of May 30 he went to Islamabad and immediately called a meeting of the main trade union leaders and activists. Some of those who are now slandering him were at this meeting came in his chambers, hiding behind the backs of some of the trade union leaders. After this meeting a procession of the trade unionists led by comrade Manzoor reached the headquarters of the PTCL. This was comrade Manzoor's second visit and he made a blistering attack on the Pakistani regime and the imperialist institutions who were trying to devastate the lives of the workers through their policies to sustain capitalism.

On June 5 five Members of the National Assembly held a press conference in support of the strike, condemning privatisation and other economic attacks of the regime on the workers. On June 6 during the budget session he organized 12 other Members of the National Assembly to join the PTUDC campaign in support of the telecommunications workers strike. These were Khalid Memon, Nayyar Bukhari, Zammurud Khan, Imtiaz Safdar Warriach, Naheed Khan, Sherry Rehman, Qurban Ali Shah, Anwer Bhutto, Shahid Bhutto, Raja Perviaz Ashraf, Sana Baloch, Rauf Mengal. Added to these are Comrades Zulfiqar Ali Gondal and Qamar Zaman Kaira who have already been sterling supporters of the PTUDC and have actively participated in its activities for three years.

During the parliamentary session comrade Manzoor challenged the Minister of Telecommunications, Awais Leghari and the Minister of Privatisation head on. He made a blistering attack on their neo-liberal capitalist policies. (See Marxist MP Manzoor Ahmed challenges the regime on PTCL privatization).

This struggle of the PTUDC may not have been reported in the West but the PTCL workers and the Pakistani proletariat in general are very much aware of it. In the five different debates on the main national TV networks, comrade Manzoor fought the case for the struggle of the striking PTCL workers against ministers, bureaucrats, and representatives of the state. His argumentation and passion was widely acclaimed and appreciated by the PTCL workers.

This battle has now been lost thanks to the treachery of the reformist and conservative leaders, but the class war continues. The PTUDC has proved its mettle as a formidable weapon of the class struggle in Pakistan. The PTUDC was instrumental in presenting four bills to repeal anti-working class legislation and for unemployment benefit for the youth. Never has this been done before in the history of this parliament. But we are well aware that these bills, even if passed, won’t solve the basic problems of the oppressed. But we have to use this parliamentary struggle to rouse the masses and link it to the struggle in the factories, villages, neighbourhoods and the shantytowns. Our MPs are playing the same role as the Bolsheviks played in the Czarist Dumas. We have an invincible belief that class struggle is irreconcilable and its can only be victorious through a Socialist Revolution. And we are going to fight to the finish.

We are building the revolution in the factories, shantytowns, and villages and among the masses, where it really counts, not on some sectarian websites in Britain. We have been and still are fighting in the frontlines against the dictators, the state, the fundamentalists, narrow nationalists, the right wing parties and the landlords and capitalists who have shackled the PPP.

In perhaps one of the most reactionary periods in recent history, we have been able to build the forces of revolutionary Marxism as never before in this country. That is why now everyone is trying to attack us. But like the Bolsheviks these attacks won’t deter us. In fact they strengthen us.

The PTUDC was formed after the brutal assassination of comrade Arif Shah in January 1995, the leader of the Punjab Labour Federation that comprised 65,000 members. Ever since then the PTUDC has been fighting for the defence of militant trade unionists and the right of the workers. Contrary to the sectarian policy of splitting the unions on the basis of petty issues, the PTUDC pursues the Leninist policy of uniting various left unions in any industry or institutions into one united union.

What we have achieved, these piddling sects  ‑ claiming to be mass parties that comprise in reality of two men and a dog ‑ cannot build in a thousand years. Because of their spite, jealousy, frustration and despair they try to sabotage our work, and unite with any reactionary force to intrigue, malign and slander us. But the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. For us they are an irrelevant force. We are not bothered by their antics, but we feel workers and youth outside need to know the real role played by the PTUDC in the PTCL strike.

Lenin once said that Marxism was so profound because it was true. And the truth is always concrete. Even the bourgeois press had to confess the role of the leadership of the PTUDC in the PTCL strike and other struggles of the workers in Pakistan. There is not a day when the media is forced to report on our struggles in the political and social scenario in Pakistan. It is not too far off in the future when we shall be able to raise the banner of socialist revolution on Pakistan’s horizon for the world to see.

August 4, 2005