July 24, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 27, 1427

THIS is reference to an article published in the EBR Weekly (July 3-9) on the “amended labour laws”. I would like to make the following points on the same topic:

That the situation in a particular trade should be kept in mind before amending or implementing any law.

That all the amendments may not be neccessarily suitable for those working in industries such as in leather, glass, cement, plastic, sugar and especially those where professional hazardous prevail.

The implementation of these labour laws in rural areas would become questionable because they do not match with the prevailing circumstances in our villages today.

Labour laws must be passed according to the requirements of the area and industry and the same may be placed before the district Taluka or union council assemblies with reference to the Sec 77 of the Factories Act-1934.

Only an increase in wages would not be sufficient because punishments under the various laws are drastically different and in some cases have become almost ridiculous.

Chapter VI, “Penalties and Procedure” of the Factory Act-1934 must be taken into consideration on priority basis, especially its Sec 60 and 63. The procedure under Police Order-2002 under Sec 34 is given which is very lengthy and would be out of reach of a concerned official.

The reading of some sections of the Factories Act is very interesting because of the fines for various violations of a law. The fine amounts under the Act is (a) Rs500 and (b) Rs750 only. The fine for violating Sec 67 of this Act is only Rs20.

Similarly, penalties under the Industrial Relation Ordinance (IRO)-2002 are not the proper remedy, and the penalties and procedures in Chapter VIII in the said ordinance should be reviewed because punishments/fines about various laws were fixed quite long ago. Of course, some of them were revised but most of them have remained unchanged since their very passage. In fact, these fines have lost their deterring force.

The Working Hour Amendment Bill-2006 is a violation of the Sec 36 of the Constitution which allows only nine hour long working day instead of 12 hours.

Syed Aijaz Ali Shah,
Labour Officer,
Government of Sindh