Strike suspends activities of rural post offices
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
FE Report
Activities of the country's rural post offices have remained suspended since Sunday when the Extra Departmental Union Workers of Bangladesh Postal Department called strike demanding higher monthly honorarium.
Secretary General of Extra Departmental (ED) Union Workers of Bangladesh Postal Department MA Hakim told the FE, "We have given a seven point demand, including increase of honorarium, amendment to recruitment policy and festival allowance".
We have been pressing for the demands for over the years, but the government did not pay any heed."
"There are 8,500 post offices across the country and around 24000 workers are working as agent. All kinds of activities including delivery of letters and parcel, and money order services have stopped in around 60 per cent of the rural post offices on the first day of strike."
"On the second day, we have halted our activities in 90 per cent of the rural offices. We will continue this stoppage till July 22, 2010. If the government does not meet our demands then we will go for indefinite strike from June 8, 2010."
Mr Hakim said, "The agent employees of the countries postal department such as a rural post master is drawing a monthly honorarium of Tk 750, EDDA (Extra Departmental Delivery Agent) Tk 734 per month and EDMC (Extra Departmental Mail Carrier) Tk 704, which is inhuman."
"We have submitted a memorandum to Prime minister, Post and Telecommunication minister and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee three times, but they all went in vain."
"We have submitted memorandum demanding monthly honorarium at Tk 4300 for rural post master, Tk 3800 for EDDA and Tk 3400 for EDMC to the postal department. After that Bangladesh Post Office (BPO) reduced the amount of honorarium to Tk 2300, Tk 2200 and Tk 2100 respectably and send it to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for approval in December 2009."
He said, "After that we staged hunger strike on June 20 to realise our demand. The then acting BPO Director General (DG) Alauddin Ahmed had assured us that BPO would take necessary steps to fulfill their demand."
BPO DG M Mobassherur Rahman told the FE Monday, "The honorarium of the agent workers are not time befitting and I think it should be increased. The government has implemented pay scale twice since 2004, but they got nothing from that."
"We have repeatedly talked with MoF regarding this issue and recently they informed that all process had been finished and it is awaiting final approval," he added.
Activities of the country's rural post offices have remained suspended since Sunday when the Extra Departmental Union Workers of Bangladesh Postal Department called strike demanding higher monthly honorarium.
Secretary General of Extra Departmental (ED) Union Workers of Bangladesh Postal Department MA Hakim told the FE, "We have given a seven point demand, including increase of honorarium, amendment to recruitment policy and festival allowance".
We have been pressing for the demands for over the years, but the government did not pay any heed."
"There are 8,500 post offices across the country and around 24000 workers are working as agent. All kinds of activities including delivery of letters and parcel, and money order services have stopped in around 60 per cent of the rural post offices on the first day of strike."
"On the second day, we have halted our activities in 90 per cent of the rural offices. We will continue this stoppage till July 22, 2010. If the government does not meet our demands then we will go for indefinite strike from June 8, 2010."
Mr Hakim said, "The agent employees of the countries postal department such as a rural post master is drawing a monthly honorarium of Tk 750, EDDA (Extra Departmental Delivery Agent) Tk 734 per month and EDMC (Extra Departmental Mail Carrier) Tk 704, which is inhuman."
"We have submitted a memorandum to Prime minister, Post and Telecommunication minister and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee three times, but they all went in vain."
"We have submitted memorandum demanding monthly honorarium at Tk 4300 for rural post master, Tk 3800 for EDDA and Tk 3400 for EDMC to the postal department. After that Bangladesh Post Office (BPO) reduced the amount of honorarium to Tk 2300, Tk 2200 and Tk 2100 respectably and send it to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for approval in December 2009."
He said, "After that we staged hunger strike on June 20 to realise our demand. The then acting BPO Director General (DG) Alauddin Ahmed had assured us that BPO would take necessary steps to fulfill their demand."
BPO DG M Mobassherur Rahman told the FE Monday, "The honorarium of the agent workers are not time befitting and I think it should be increased. The government has implemented pay scale twice since 2004, but they got nothing from that."
"We have repeatedly talked with MoF regarding this issue and recently they informed that all process had been finished and it is awaiting final approval," he added.