AFTER young doctors, the employees of Utility Stores Cor
poration in recent years have often been seen pressing for their demands such as salary raise through protest demonstrations. The top management of the USC has now decided to implement the Essential Services Act for six months in a bid to avoiding any potential protest by the employees so that uninterrupted supply of items to the masses could be ensured.
Indeed these are difficult times due to the challenge posed by Coronavirus. Protecting the consumers from the inflation and price hike in this situation should be the paramount responsibility of the government. Relief packages given through the Utility Stores over the last few months including the Ramadan Package have not only helped push up the sale and revenue of the Corporation but also stabilized the prices of essential commodities in the open market. Since the pandemic has badly affected the livelihood of the people and their income, therefore the government must continue to provide essential items to the people at subsidized rates through the utility outlets. Hence, we welcome the USC Managing Director Umer Lodhi’s steps towards ensuring uninterrupted operations of the Utility Stores. In fact there are always elements within an organization who unduly try to exploit the situation to their advantage and such troublemakers need to be taken to task to improve performance of organizations. As also very rightly pointed out by the USC Managing Director, there is no reason for the USC employees now to go on strike as not only their salaries have been enhanced but they have been given honorary awards during the holy month of Ramadan. We are all for accepting the genuine demands of the employees as their satisfaction is supremely important to motivate and get maximum output from them. We, therefore, also suggest the USC management to sit with the Union of the employees and address any of their genuine pending issues. The employees also must act responsibly and work in the best interest of the organization. We will also suggest the government to end ad-hocism in public sector departments and also introduce a uniform and equitable salary package to end this heartburning amongst the employees.
