1. SYED AKHTAR NAQI NAQVI. (SENIOR MEMBER).---UBL Employees Federation which shall henceforth be called as the petitioner has filed petition under section 49(4)(e) of the I.R.O., 2002 contending therein that it is a federation of trade unions and workmen employed in the respondent-Bank throughout Pakistan and is duly registered with the Registrar of Industry-wise Trade Unions. It is contended therein that in the year 1996, in order to curb the trade union activities false cases were registered against the office-bearers of the federation resultantly services of large number of workers were terminated and for all practical purposes the employer destroyed the federation but many of the so dismissed workers have been reinstated into service by order's of the Courts while cases of certain others are pending adjudication in different Courts of law. The petitioner has contended that elections of the federation were held in the year 2004 and the result thereof were approved by the Registrar of Industry-wise Trade Unions but the petitioner now apprehends that the management is determined to get the federation deregistered and for this purpose an application by the Registrar of Industry-wise Trade Unions was got filed under section 10 of the I.R.O., 1969 (since repealed) before the Labour Court (a Court constituted by the Chairman N.I.R.C.
As Labour Court) which application is still pending. It was further contended that in order to harass the office-bearers of the union, a petition under section 22-A(8)(g) of the I.R.O. 1969 (since repealed) was filed in the years 2000 which is still pending without any material progress. The petitioner further contended that a meeting of the UBL Employees was held at Lahore on 10th of September, 2005 at Bukhtiar Labour Hall at the instance of UBL Employees Union Lahore Region and the workers were invited through a poster appended as Annex-B but after coming to know of this meeting, the respondent-management has started threatening the workers of the petitioner and its office-bearers with dire consequences of transfers, charge-sheets and victimization in other forms. In order to get protection against such kind of alleged acts of unfair labour practice, the petitioner-federation has filed this petition which is appended with an application under Regulation 32(2) of the N.I.R.C. (P&F) Regulations, 1973 for temporary relief of restraining the respondents from committing unfair labour practice and more particularly from charge-sheeting, transferring or otherwise victimizing and active member of the trade union, office-bearers of the federation and its affiliated unions till the disposal of the main petition.
2. The Bank-management contested the grievance petition as well as stay application thereby assailing the jurisdiction of this Commission and maintainability of this petition on various grounds enumerated in the preliminary legal objections in reply to the grievance petition most of which are mixed questions of law and facts hence the same cannot be answered summarily. However, the allegations of unfair labour practice were denied as incorrect and it was contended that the relief sought is in a general form relating to indefinite workers/group of workers and for an indefinite period which cannot be granted and secondly contending that transfer of worker/employee is a prerogative of the employer and he is the authority to decide as to which place of posting of a certain worker is best suited. I heard arguments addressed at the bar and have perused record.
3. The learned counsel for the petitioner has referred to certain incidents which look place in the year 1996. It's a matter about nine years back and even if those incidents were the result of any kind of unfair labour practice on the part of the respondents which is otherwise denied by them as baseless, the petitioner has not produced for perusal of this Bench any copies of the orders passed regarding their services or passed by the concerned Courts and also relevance of those persons with the workers of the present petitioner-federation. Any worker or office-bearer of the petitioner- federation, if he is under any apprehension of any hostile act on the part of the respondent against him, can approach the appropriate forum under section 49 (4)(e) of the I.R.O., 2002 which enables a worker, CBA Unions, Industry-wise Trade Union or either of them or persons acting on behalf of any of them to get the grievance redressed. Anyway the petitioner is under apprehension of the respondents' act of exercising legal right against its federation. It is a matter of common sense that exercise of a legal right cannot be termed as an act of unfair labour practice. Even otherwise it may be insulting in observing that the respondents got the petition filed by the Registrar of Industry- wise Trade Union for cancellation of its registration before the Labour Court as was observed in para No,7 of the petition. However, the apprehension made in this paragraph seems to be self- styled. It was better for the petitioner to have contested those petitions in a legal manner. This cannot be used as a basis for their apprehension of unfair labour practice against the workers/office-bearers of the petitioner-federation. In this view of the matter the petitioner has no prima facie case for such a general type of stay order. It has equally no balance of convenience in favour of its members or office-bearers since alternate remedies are available to them under the appropriate provisions of law, they shall not suffer from any irreparable loss. On the contrary the interim relief as sought through the application under Regulation 32(2) of the N.I.R.C. (P&F)
Regulations, 1973 shall create a confusion among the respondents and give a licence to the workers of the petitioner- federation for office indiscipline. As an example the learned counsel for the respondents has referred to a pamphlet published by the petitioner- federation whereby a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Mr. Khurshid Ahmed Khan who has no concern with the respondent-Bank admittedly and whereby outsiders were also invited to address. Such type of trade union activities may increase in the Bank resulting in indiscipline since every transfer, charge-sheet no matter on administrative grounds shall be called in question before this Commission the administration shall be rendered helpless at the hands of the workers whereas, as already observed, any aggrieved worker may approach the appropriate forum in case of any grievance.