KARACHI: Govt asked to stop ignoring workers’ problems
KARACHI, Nov 13: The National Labour Foundation (NLF), Karachi Zone, has asked the government to shun its policy of ignoring the problems faced by the working class as workers are the backbone of the country’s economy.
A meeting of the zone’s executive council, with its President Rafiq Ahmed in the chair, charged that bureaucracy was least interested in resolving workers’ problems whereas the working class was at the bottom of the government’s priority list.
It said that due to this apathetic attitude of the ruling classes, the problems were aggravating with every passing day. It also urged the government to incorporate the amendments, recommended by various labour organizations, to the IRO-2002, and withdraw the ‘anti-labour’ Banking Ordinance.
The NLF asked that the government to control the price hike and inflation. Besides bringing down the prices of petroleum products, the government should raise wages substantially, so that workers could be able to have two-square meals.
Referring to the raise of 30 per cent in the salaries of public sector employees, the meeting demanded that the same raise be announced for private sector employees in order to end the economic discrimination and disparity between the workers of the two sectors.
The meeting demanded reinstatement of all workers and union leaders sacked from various institutions.
The meeting strongly condemned the contract system in hiring workers and called for an end to the same.
It demanded that labour union activities be allowed in all those institutions where the same were presently banned. It noted with deep concern that wages of Shipyard workers had not been raised for the past three years.
