Bapco has suspended 50 employees for their involvement in a strike called by the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions last month.

Forty other employees, who have been investigated, will face action soon, said a statement.

"(Their action) resulted in disruption of operations and financial loss as well as harming the company's reputation and creating disunity among the employees," it added.

The number of sacked workers registering with unionists has increased by nearly 100 to reach 700 from the private and public sectors in Bahrain.

However, union heads say the dismissal rate is slowing down after it stood at 604 on Tuesday.

The General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU) says its registration at its headquarters in Adliya of 178 sacked workers from Alba and 138 from Bapco tops the number of those listed since April 6.

They are followed by Gulf Air (21), Bahrain Airport Services (47), APM Terminals (126), Batelco (117) and other government bodies.

'We registered 700 workers till date for the unemployment insurance scheme,' said a GFBTU spokesman.

'Their cases are being registered along with their job profiles in the companies they served.'

Ministries and companies in private sector dismissed staff for allegedly skipping work to take part in anti-government protests called by GFBTU and unjustified absenteeism. The spokesman said that seeing the relatively low turnout of workers at the union headquarters, it was clear that sackings have reduced.

'We have noticed fewer people coming these days as compared to last week,' he said. 'Based on this, we feel that companies have stopped dismissing people and have already taken action against certain staff.'

Five board members from the federation have also been sacked from Bapco and Batelco respectively.

Unionists are expected to provide the list of names of all sacked workers by next week to the Labour ministry.

Our sister newspaper Gulf Daily News (GDN) reported yesterday that the ministry would summon companies, who sacked workers and evaluate each case.

Cases where it is discovered that a worker is dismissed unfairly will be directly referred to the Labour Court.

However, workers sacked from their jobs are not eligible for unemployment insurance scheme, said officials.

Cases other than these could be reviewed for inclusion in the scheme, they added.

His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa on March 28 ordered a crackdown on absentee public sector employees and directed ministries and government departments to strictly implement rules set by Civil Service Bureau (CSB).

Following the directives, several ministries - namely Health, Culture, Municipal and Urban Planning Affairs, Housing, Education among others - formed investigation committees or commissions of inquiry to take action against staff violating CSB rules.-TradeArabia News Service