The PSEB Employees’ Joint Forum, the Electricity Employees’ Ekta Manch Punjab, along with allied employees’ and pensioners’ organisations have expressed resentment over the alleged forced distribution of smartphones to technical employees.
A delegation of organisation leaders, including Gurpreet Singh Gandiwind, Harbhinder Singh Chahal, Manjit Singh Bahminwala, Pooran Das and Mangal Singh, submitted a memorandum to Deputy Chief Engineer Mohtam Singh here on Wednesday.
The leaders said that the management had earlier agreed to provide overtime to technical employees who remain on duty for more than eight hours during feeder faults, based on monitoring carried out through mobile phones by field staff.
They alleged that the management was implementing the smartphone distribution policy without a clear framework and was ignoring employees’ legitimate concerns regarding privacy and other issues linked to the use of mobile devices.
The organisations further claimed that officials at the sub-divisional and divisional levels were attempting to distribute smartphones by threatening technical employees with harassment and disciplinary action. Taking serious note of the matter, the organisations stated that until the concerns raised regarding the use of MDM software are addressed and a comprehensive smartphone policy, similar to the existing laptop policy, is framed, employees will not accept the smartphones. They also demanded that overtime benefits be ensured for duties extending beyond eight hours. The organisations warned that if the administration continued with what they termed an “intimidation policy” to enforce smartphone distribution, they would be compelled to launch an agitation.
