Over 8000 Workers from the All Pakistan Hydroeletric Workers Union staged a sit-in and rally in Islamabad on January 28 to protest the ongoing privatization of the energy sector in Pakistan.Workers from all the four provinces and regions of the country attended the rally. The rally was attended by several trade unionists from various sectors and industries, besides Wapda workers. Speakers on the occasion denounced the government's anti-poor policies and the neoliberal agenda of the IMF/World Bank that was hell-bent on crushing the working class across the country and vowed to continue their struggle until the government agreed to reform the institutions being privatized instead of selling them off.
AWP Islamabad/Rawalpindi members, including Dr. Farzana Bari, Dr. Aasim Sajjad and Zahoor Khan, also participated in the rally to support the workers' anti-privatization struggle. Addressing the workers, President AWP Punjab, Aasim Sajjad Akhtar said that the only way to combat inequality and violence was for workers across the country and beyond to unite across sector, ethnic, religious and gender lines and recover their long-lost ideological convictions.
He said that the country's anti-poor policies were not because of one or two rulers but because of an entire political and economic system that was rigged in favor of the powerful.
It is worth noting that though the protest was outside the Press Club, it barely received any electronic media coverage with no more than two cameras present during the entire event.
[Source: Awami Workers Party (AWP) Facebook]
