December 19, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 8, 1428

PESHAWAR, Dec 18: The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, an alliance of various workers’ unions, has complained that all major political parties have ignored demands of the working-class people in their election manifestoes.

Speaking to journalists here at the Peshawar Press Club, PTUDC’s provincial organiser Sher Alam said none of the major political parties had given a programme for the welfare of skilled and unskilled workers, who were the backbone of the country’s economy.

He said that even the Pakistan People’s Party, which believed in the might of the masses, had not offered any incentives to workers and other marginalised groups. He said the Awami National Party and both factions of the Pakistan Muslim League were also silent on this vital issue.

He said that all parties had failed to offer welfare-oriented and comprehensive programme for thousands of workers. Mr Alam said: “It is our considered opinion that all these parties are representatives of exploitative forces and supporters of international capitalism.

“They do not want to bring about any structural change in the exploitative socio-economic system.

“The PTUDC rejects manifestoes of all these political parties, who are defenders of the elite class.”

He said the people were not only targets of exploitation-based economic system, but were equally a direct victim of the naked dictatorship and US-sponsored terrorism.

He said the unity of the people and integrity of the country was at stake, because military and civilian rulers had got the masses divided on ethnic and sectarian grounds, adding that it were the dictators and their political allies who had brought the country to this stage.

He demanded of all political parties to include demands of workers unions in their manifestoes.

He asked also asked them to promise with the working class people that they would make legislation in the light of ILO’s Conventions, abolish the

IRO 2002 and stop the victimisation of workers in the garb of privatisation and re-structuring of commercial and industrial units.