Stop exploiting the petrol pump attendants?

Mr. Mehmet Celepoglu,

Chief Executive Officer

Total Parco Pakistan Limited,

Merhabalar Mehmet Bey,

Minimum Wages : Total Parco Petrol Stations.

As a citizen and a newspaper columnist, my research on minimum wages in Pakistan has often led me to some very distressing conclusions of how employees, specially those at the lower (or perhaps lowest ) tier are denied even the minimum wages specified by the law.

Total Parco is an ethical and prestigious organization that I hold in high esteem. It was therefore extremely astonishing and painful for me to discover the disproportionately low wages being paid to the large number of employees who work at Total Parco petrol stations.

Petrol pump employees work on a 24 hour shift basis, working on alternate days for 15 days in a month.   Each day of duty involves 8 hours of regular and 16 hours of over time.   The law specifies a minimum wage of Rs.17500 per month for an 8 hour shift and wages at twice the rate for overtime.     Thus the minimum wage that ought to be paid to every employee for first 8 hours of 15 days ought to be Rs.8750 and for additional 240 hours of overtime/ per month ought to be Rs.35000. Thus every employee performing a 24 hour shift on alternate days for 15 days in a month ought to be paid at least Rs.43750 per month. As of today employees working on Total Parco petrol pumps receive about one third of this amount.

May I request you Sir, to kindly immediately restore the legal and human rights of employees at all Total Parco petrol stations. The wages of ALL employees, employed by Total Parco itself or its contractors, working on a 24 hour shift basis, ought to be raised to Rs.43750.

Kindly also ensure that each one of them is also registered with EOBI and Social Security.

I would be grateful if you could confirm that these actions have been implemented within 30 days of the receipt of this letter. Tesekkurlar.

Kind regards, best wishes and Kolay gelsin.

Sincerely,

Naeem Sadiq