Nawanshahr:- On May 1, 2026, on Labor Day, an online meeting was held by the Government Schools Laboratory Staff Union Punjab under the leadership of State President Patwant Singh. In which State General Secretary Pankaj Sapra, State Finance Secretary Sukhmander Singh Moga, State Senior Vice President Gurmeet Singh Salabatpura, State Senior Vice President Dilpreet Singh Bhinder, State Vice President Yogesh Kaura, State Organizing Secretary Jatinder Singh Bhangu, State Press Secretary Paramjit Kumar, State Chief Spokesperson of the organization Harjit Singh Brar spoke vehemently about restoring the broken pay parity of SLA employees working in government schools from December 2011 to the Non-Teaching Civil Services Rules of 2018 and before the July 2020 rules.
The leaders said that this parity was deliberately broken by the then government to create a rift among the non-teaching employees, due to which every SLA employee is suffering from a 43% loss every month compared to his equivalent cadres and is being forced to work on meager allowance, which is a great resentment among all SLA employees. To restore this broken pay parity and to change the name of the SLA post from Senior Laboratory Attendant to Senior Laboratory Assistant, a demand which does not impose any additional burden on the department and the government, which was earlier accepted by the Chief Minister of Punjab, Parkash Singh Badal, during the Akali Dal government, which was also notified and then rejected by the department. Since then, the organization has always surrounded the government with this demand, but it is very regrettable to say that the government of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has not taken any notice of us. Despite the passage of four years, not a single meeting has been held with our organization, while from time to time, the organization has sought time for a meeting through social media, by mail, and personally by reaching the offices, but neither time was found nor any solution was found. Rather, the anti-employee face of the Mann government has come to the fore.
In order to surround the Punjab government through its struggle, the organization will hold a large gathering and a symbolic protest in front of the house of Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains on Sunday, May 17. In which SLA employees from all districts of Punjab will be part of this struggle. State Committee Member Gurvinder Singh Sandhu talked about giving promotion to SSA employees to various posts based on their educational qualification, increasing the promotion quota of non-teaching employees, getting TET passed non-teaching employees who have been promoted to the master cadre to get station choice soon, increasing the educational qualification of SLA employees, cutting unnecessary duties of SLA employees and getting them to work only as per the job profile. All the district presidents were present on this occasion.