May 08, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 2, 1429

HYDERABAD, May 7: The president of National Labour Federation, Sindh chapter, Rana Mehmood Ali Khan, has said that the workers of biscuit factories of Hyderabad have been deprived of all legal rights, they were neither being issued appointment letters nor social security cards and a large number of these workers were being paid less than Rs4,600 per month.

He was speaking at a biscuit factories workers convention here on Wednesday. He pointed out that the prime minister of Pakistan had fixed minimum wages at Rs6,000 per month but the biscuit factories’ workers were being paid only Rs2,000 per month.

Mehmood Ali Khan said that in order to hoodwink the labour department, the biscuit factory workers were made to sign on salary of Rs4,600 although they were being paid much less. He said, as no record of the workers was being kept, therefore, they were not being paid gratuity on their retirement.

He said there were only a few trade unions in biscuit factories, where the workers were getting notified salaries but all the other workers were denied all legal rights under the factory act. The others who spoke on the occasion included Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh, Saeed Ahmed, Mohammad Iqbal and others.

They welcomed the announcement by the prime minister about the raise in minimum wages but demanded that the workers of biscuit factories should be allowed to form trade unions and given all facilities under the labour laws.