PAY STRUCTURE DISPARITIES : Govt officers, univ teachers begin work abstention [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

PAY STRUCTURE DISPARITIES : Govt officers, univ teachers begin work abstention

Local January 12, 2016

Govern offices across the country saw no activities for two hours from the midday on Monday as over 4.30 lakh officers abstained from work demanding removal of disparities from the new pay structure.
Indefinite strike by public university teachers from the same day on the same demand paralyzed 37 public universities of the country.
The protesting government officers included engineers, doctors, agriculturists as well as the members of 26 out of 28 cadres of Bangladesh Civil Service.
No classes were held for two hours in 320 government colleges due to the teachers, as the members of BCS education cadre, skipping routine duties.
All the groups feel aggrieved over the disparities created by the new pay structure by denying them
of their existing benefits and choking their future opportunities and prospects.
Restoration of the timescales and the selection grades, which used to facilitate moving on to higher scales and grades of pay is the common demand of all the groups.
They said that the timescales and the selection grades were the best safeguards for most of them enjoying limited or no opportunities of promotion.
The new pay structure blocked their movement on to higher pay scales and grades while offering no promotions as remedies,

Students gossip in the corridor of Dhaka University as teachers observe work abstention on Monday, protesting at disparity in the new pay scale. — Sanaul Haque

Removal of inter-cadre disparities is another important demand for cadre service officers who feel discriminated due to better opportunities offered to the administrative and the foreign service colleagues.
Officers of Bangladesh Bank postponed their work abstention until January 24 on request from the central bank governor Atiur Rahman, said Bangladesh Bank Officers Welfare Association president Siddikur Rahman Mollah.
He said that the governor assured them that their demands would be duly considered at the next meeting of the governing body of BB scheduled for January 24.
The central bank officers observed work abstention on Thursday and Sunday demanding a higher scale as the starting point as the cadre officers would enjoy under the new pay structure.
The Bangladesh Bank on Sunday banned gatherings, rallies and processions at its head office and 10 branches across the country to stop the agitations against the new pay structure.
The university teachers’ strike kept 15 lakh students off the class rooms.
The teachers of several universities, however, took scheduled semester final exams.
The Bangladesh Federation of University Teachers’ Associations president Farid Uddin Ahmed said the indefinite work abstention would continue until their demands were met.
‘The bureaucrats forced us to start the agitation,’ he said.
‘For nine months they refused to give us what we deserve,’ Farid told reporters on the Dhaka University campus Monday.
The bureaucrats are now prescribing 9am-5pm working hours for teachers, he said.
‘We are not clerks. We work 24 hours,’ he said pointing at the different ways of work of the teachers and the officers.
Teachers of Jahangirnagar University, Rajshahi University, Chittagong University, Shahjalal Science and Technology University, Islamic University also began the indefinite strike.
University teachers’ demands include either they be given a separate pay structure or the election grades and timescales should restored.
For a certain percentage of the senior university teachers they have been pressing for the pay, perks and status equal to senior secretaries’.
Aggrieved officers and the three professional groups held protests inside their offices wearing black badges, said member-secretary of the steering committee formed by the four groups Md Firoz Khan.
The professional groups and the BCS Coordination Committee began their agitations under a common banner in October.
Their seven-point charter of demands also includes removal of cadre and non-cadre disparities.