AIOU daily wagers lead a life of uncertainty

ISLAMABAD: Around 450 workers of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), most of them engaged for over a decade, are daily wagers. They are contracted for 89 days and after gape of one day their contracts are renewed.
AIOU Deputy Registrar M Ismail Fahmi told Daily Times that an employee hired in scale two received Rs 253 daily, however if he didn’t show up in the office for any reason he won’t be paid.
He was reluctant to share the AIOU’s policy about daily wagers. He said only the registrar, Ilyas Ahmed, could tell the rational behind this policy. The registrar was unavailable at office and on phone for comments.
Zahid Majeed, AIOU Academic Staff Association general secretary, said the administration did not advertise posts for daily wagers, so there was no criterion for their hiring. In any case, the fate of daily wagers rested on the mood of their immediate supervisors since they could be hired or fired even without a short notice.
“A lower division cleric has been working for the last seventeen years on daily basis but has not been regularized as yet. When AIOU is using his services for so many years, why don’t they regularize him? Muhammad Shafiq, an LDC, has completed his 17 years of service and had he been a regular employee, he would have been entitled to pension after 25 years of service,” he said.
Employees Welfare Association President Malik Saeed said lower division clerics (LDC) were the backbone of the institution.
“Daily wagers are paid on attendance basis so they are not entitled to get money on Sundays or even on national holydays. The international Labour Day is also a doom day for AIOU’s daily wager since they do get a day off, but without money,” he said.
A naib qasid said, “When I go home I am not sure if there will be a tomorrow for me in the office. Insecurity prevails.”
“They don’t raise their voice fearing that the administration might terminate them. It is inhuman not to regularize those who are working for years. Daily wagers’ experience is not counted so they cannot get jobs on the behalf of the previous record of their service,” Prof Rasheed Khalid of QAU lamented.
A female in IT department said that she had worked as a daily wager in AIOU for three years before getting a regular job. “ Being a daily wager, I always felt insecure,” she said.
There is another side of the story: when some are being exploited, others are intimidating.
Director Regional Services (DRC) Ali Asghar Hussnain was hired as a daily wager after his retirement for 89 days. It was an exception that this post was widely advertised, against which AIOU received more than 30 applications.
Sources said the applicants were PHD degree holders but none of them was called for interview other than Hussnain. “Now he is working on this post for one and a half years as his contract is renewed on every 90th day after a gap of one day,” a representative of AIOU Academic Staff Association said.
He said the contract was renewed after 89 days with a gap of one day because upon completion of 90 days of service, the university was bound to give the employee some benefits.
Dr Saqib Riaz, of the AIOU, said advertisement, short listing and interviews were mandatory for regular appointments. “But daily wagers usually come from backdoors. They are put in offices by some influential people.”

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