Over 300 GP employees retrenched!

DHAKA: Over 300 employees of county’s mobile giant Grameenphone (GP) have lost their job so far in the ongoing retrenchment process.

At least 50 employees faced the termination measure in the name of job saving ‘examination’. So that notorious! ‘Examination’ has become a panic for the GP employees creating a stagnant situation in the company. Those who are still in job they are passing days through frustration and panic.

Earlier GP authority tried to console the anxious employees that they are not terminating anybody but are not in a position to accommodate all for rearranging the company in newer way.

At the last on Sunday banglanews was informed that so far 120 employees have been retrenched. Chief Communication Officer of GP Kazi Manirul Kabir changing his earlier position told, “We did not say that we are retrenching no one.

He added: “Not only we, but this retrenchment measure takes place all over the world, including Bangladesh. We are not retrenching employees with a definite target which is a usual practice of the foreign companies.”

GP has started the process of terminating employees in the name of ‘so called job saving examination.’ At present, GP has 4800 manpower on the roll.

After the retrenchment process begun, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) wanted to know the reason by sending letter.

But that futile exercise of BTRC could not deter the GP authority stopping retrenchment. Next the GP employees formed GP Employees Association to protect their job.

At this, the GP authority became more desperate in behavior. In consequence, GP authority blocked the entry of 50 employees in the head office.

These employees while trying to enter their head office found that their Identity Cards were not functioning. It is learnt that the authority has damaged the barcode of their ID cards to bar their entry.

It is learnt that so far over 300 people lost their job at the rate of 50 each time. This termination process has started from last June when the new CEO of GP Tore Johnsen took over charge in March of 2011 of the mobile operator company.

Tore Johnsen has a reputation of minimizing expenditure. Before the present posting while he was in Malaysia also earned reputation for minimizing expenditure.

Johnsen has brought with him a few close men from Malaysian company. Pakistani born Haroon Bhatti, chief of human resource department is one of them. This Haroon Bahatti is working as the kingpin in present retrenchment process.

It is learnt from several sources of GP that the number of retrenched employees will be not less than 300. More few hundred are awaiting retrenchment in the pending list. The employees are being axed every time after taking written examination.

In the e-mail message of Tore it was told each gets equal opportunity in written examination and it is a transparent process. Especially he spoke very high about the ‘written examination’. He mentioned written examination as the best way to test merit.

To the contrary, one axed employee of GP told that, “I lost my job though I got 14 out of 20 marks but some are still in job though they obtained just 7 or 8 marks. The GP authority is simply playing a hypocritical game in the name of examination.

On the other hand, the newly formed GP Employees Association has called for a four-point movement including stopping of retrenchment. If their four-point demands are not implemented they will announce next programme.

The other demands include introduction of just and logical increment rate reviewing the present increment system, paying compensations for the retrenched employees in the form of social/monetary/mental with due respect and payment of 5 percent profit in arrear which is their just receivable amount.  

A leader of the association told that none of us is safe as the way the retrenchment is going.    

BDST: 1655 HRS, JUL 08, 2012

Edited by: Shahjahan / M. Mahbub Alam, Asst Output Editor