“TIP was my first job. I’ve served TIP for over a decade, and this is what they do to me. I’m literally being pushed out of the gates”, said one victim before breaking into tears.

A number of the diligent employees who lost their job had been serving TIP since its inception, while most had been rendering valuable services to the institute’s management and upkeep for over past 5 years.

According to reliable sources, majority of the employees who have been terminated under the pretext of ‘cost cutting’ were in the petty salary range of Rs.7,000 to 15,000 per month.

It has also been reported that none of the TIP employees have received any form of increment in the past two years. Despite this, the governing board which consists of some of the most well-known and successful names from Pakistan’s textile industry and elite circles, found it appropriate to start sacking employees to compensate their questionable organizational planning and management competence.

In an anonymous survey conducted within TIP during the past two days, the following comments were received from furious students and unmotivated employees:

Mera bas chaley tau is pooray board ko jail mai band karwadoon.

Ek mohtaram, apna itna bara F*r**q textile mill band karwa kar ab TIP ko band karwaney par tuley hain.

These elitist frauds in the board should be ashamed of themselves. They teach the students in management and HRM courses that layoff is not the way to make an organization in financial crisis recover, better planning is.

How come the sleeping management doesn’t fire people who sell TIP’s assets to buy luxuries without permission?

Mustafa bhai [faculty peon] had tears in his eyes. I could not look him in the eye.

As TIP heads towards the end of a terrible year, several controversial questions and ironies need to be addressed. For instance, how can a non-profit organization which has been systematically brought to the brink of collapse and finds temporary sustainability by disposing off employees afford an expensive president whose salary level matches that of the corporate world? Similarly, many questions have been raised about the justification and competence of some of the lavishly paid new appointments by TIP salary standards in the admissions and short courses division.

Indeed, these sentiments are heartfelt and must not be ignored how ever displeasing they may appear to top most tier that governs TIP and their well wishers. This is the voice of TIP.

[Related post: Popular media rejects TIP's layoffs]

Enhance productivity & quality through testing

Cotton is traded world over in different denominations like most popular being US $ /lb but this differs market to market when we go more specific to country wise like in Pakistan it is traded in Rs. /Maund(37.324kgs) or in China Rmb/ton or in India Rs. /candy(227kgs)(356kgs). So in order to understand and compare various prices all over the world we should be able to comprehend these into one single unit to better understand and analyse the available data.

The five major cotton exporting countries in 2009 were (1) the United States, (2) India, (3) Uzbekistan, (4) Brazil, and (5) Pakistan. So if we look at the cotton exports of US and India, that figure makes almost 50% of the total cotton exported worldwide so you can well imagine how the global trade is influenced by these two cotton producing nations. Lets first look at the US, the total domestic mill usage is almost 3.5 million bales against a crop size ranging from as high as 21.6 million (2006-07) and 12.2 million (2008-09). Each bale is of 480 lbs). So anything above 4 million bales, it needs to be exported. So that’s why the cotton trade world over is greatly influenced by the price of cotton futures traded on NY Board of trade (NYBOT). A specific standard for quality of cotton fibre with respect to its length and color is defined as a base, Premiums and Discounts for deviation from this base grade is offered by merchants world over. For example, Pakistani cotton is usually traded on a discounted price because of the higher trash contents whereas Indian cotton is traded on a premium because of its better quality like higher staple length and lower trash content. On NYBOT, Cotton is traded in form of contracts of each contract of 50,000lbs for contract months of March, May, July, October, December.

I now leave the subject open to you for more self exploration from following useful links and i jump on to share some updated market reports for you to have a taste on what kind of market reports i was referring to,

http://www.cottoninc.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton

http://www.brecorder.com/news/cotton-and-textiles/

http://www.thefabricofourlives.com/

http://www.cottonaustralia.com.au/facts/factsandfigures.aspx?id=7

http://www.marketswiki.com/mwiki/ICE_Cotton_No._2

The move is meant to help Pakistan recover from devastating floods and
maintain political stability. In parallel, Islamabad has agreed to
take back illegal migrants returned by EU states. Most of the trade
concessions will be on textile exports, though there will be no tariff
cuts on Pakistan’s main product – bed linen – because of EU industry
opposition.

“This proposal will offer a real boost to Pakistan’s economic
recovery, while at the same time taking into account sensitivities of
EU industries,” EU trade chief Karel De Gucht told reporters. The plan
foresees suspending tariffs for up to three years, and will include
monitoring to ensure exporters from other states do not try to smuggle
their wares into Europe via Pakistan to avoid duties.

It must be approved by EU governments, the European Parliament and
members of the World Trade Organisation, including India, Sri Lanka
and Bangladesh, which compete with Pakistan for textile sales to
Europe. EU officials said they hope for full approval by January. EU
manufacturers criticised the plan for including sensitive products
such as cotton yarn, fabrics and towels, in which European industry is
already struggling to compete with countries that have access to cheap
local cotton.

“We don’t believe our textile and clothing industry should have to pay
for what Europe is giving to Pakistan,” said Luisa Santos, head for
international trade issues at EU textile and clothing lobby Euratex.
“This will not help regular Pakistanis. This will help a couple of
companies that already have turnover of more than 200 million euros,”
she added.

Among companies that could gain from the plan are Pakistan’s largest
listed textile company, Nishat Mills Ltd and Sapphire Textile Mills.
Reeling from floods that have displaced millions, Pakistan has said it
urgently needs greater market access to help stabilise its economy,
and has said Islamist militants could exploit its economic crisis and
any political instability.

The plan was unveiled on the same day as EU ministers approved an
agreement with Pakistan that allows either side to return any illegal
migrants to their country of origin. Britain, Sweden and Germany
pushed for the trade benefits, but France, Italy and other EU states
with domestic textile and clothing industries were reticent at a time
of economic stress. Others say the concessions will do most harm to
Bangladesh.

“This is robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said one trade expert from a
country outside the EU. “The only reason it will go through is because
of political relations in the region.” Products affected by the tariff
suspension include cotton yarn, woven fabrics, cotton jackets,
trousers, baby clothes, socks, gloves, sandals and mushrooms. The
tariff break also allows for 100,000 tonnes of ethanol per year.