| February 01, 2009 | Sunday | Safar 05, 1430 |
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Governance by exceptions
Seeking global equality
The mala fide privatisation policy
Baloch TV channel
Bringing drone attacks to a halt
War of words
Miandad’s exit
Pensioners’ woes
South Asians prone to heart disease
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
IN addition to the forum of CBA union, the Industrial Relations Act 2008 has the in-company forums of shop stewards, management committee, joint management board and the works council.
While there is no minimum number required under the IRA to get a union registered, the other four bodies can be formed only in factories where 50 or more persons are employed. Amongst the above forums, the CBA union is the one which is most powerful and has got the right to nominate its representatives on the other forums.
The CBA can also raise a charter of demands followed by negotiations with their employer for improvement in the terms and conditions of employment of workers whom it represents within the company. If the bilateral negotiation does not succeed and they also fail before the government-appointed conciliator, the CBA may go on strike with seven days’ notice to the management.
According to the prevailing tradition, the union’s demands may comprise anything under the sky and it is up to the employer as to what he may concede and what is acceptable to the union to reach a settlement.
Shop stewards are appointed from each shop, section or department and also from each shift of the factory. Their function is to act as a link between workers and the employer, assist in improvement of physical working conditions and production work and help workers in the settlement of their work-related problems or any individual grievance. In an average-sized factory there may be around 10 shop stewards.
Broadly speaking, the management of a factory shall not take any decision on such matters as framing of service rules and policy about promotion and discipline of workers etc without the advice, in writing, of workers’ representatives on the management committee.
Workers’ representatives may on their own give advice in writing concerning the above matters and the management will have to immediately convene a meeting to discuss its merits with them.
In case the management does not agree with the workers’ advice, the latter may make this issue an industrial dispute.
The employer’s representatives on the management committee (JMB) shall be from amongst the directors or senior executives and the workers’ representatives shall be workmen employed in the factory.
The board shall generally look after matters such as improvement in production, productivity and efficiency, fixation of job and piece rates. The JMB should hold at least one meeting in three months to discuss these matters.
The main functions of the works council are to promote settlement of differences and disputes through bilateral negotiation and to take measures for facilitating good and harmonious working conditions in the establishment etc. There will be equal representation of management and workers’ representatives in the works council with minimum of 10 and maximum of 20 members. The council must have at least one meeting every month.
As is obvious from the above, the forums of management committee and joint management board are redundant as the subjects within their domain are comprehensively discussed by the CBA union with their management during the bilateral negotiations on the former’s charter of demands.
These were wisely omitted from the Industrial Relations Ordinance 2002 but have now been revived by the IRA 2008. Membership of the Works Council was limited to maximum of 10 in the IRO 2002 which has now been increased to 20 in the IRA 2008.
If we add up the minimum number of workers’ representatives in the above forums, they will add up to 25 in a factory comprising a total of 55 workers only.
It means that almost half of the total manpower in a factory will be involved in looking after the aforesaid matters on behalf of workers instead of concentrating on the improvement of factory’s productivity, which is the source of their livelihood.
I understand that the government is planning to shortly convene a tripartite conference comprising the employers and workers, as well as the government’s representatives, to discuss and submit recommendations to amend the Industrial Relations Act 2008.
They should have a pragmatic approach to address the real issues facing the employers and workers so that none of the stakeholders feel aggrieved or agitated once their suggestions are legislated.
PARVEZ RAHIM
Karachi
SHAHID Javed Burki concludes his article, ‘Unresolved issues’ (Jan 27), with the emphasis on the need for the present government to let the people know exactly what it has in mind when it comes to providing them with good governance, in order to arrest the economic deterioration in the country.
In the same issue of the newspaper appeared a news item, ‘Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani issued 2,788 arms licences of prohibited bore [as exception] during his first six months in office, the National Assembly was informed on Monday....’The whole structure of governance in our country has come to stand on one set of exceptions or another. People don’t count, even principles don’t. So how can anyone expect good governance to be happening?
Why does it not register in our collective psyche that those countries that have attained dignity and progress drag into truly independent courts their prime minister’s children, and the sitting president himself where required, for violating laws of the land.
Individuals have to bend in order to fit the inflexible laws, not the other way round, as is the case in Pakistan. That principle applies in the formulation and success of economic policies as well.
Red traffic signal means: ‘stop’ for everybody — except some, usually with a convoy trailing behind. Tinted glasses of vehicles are against the law — except for some. Murderers are hanged or imprisoned for life — except some. Taking bribes is a crime — except for some. Tampering with the Constitution of the country is high treason – with exception for some. Government servants are not allowed to enter politics and hold a public office for at least two years after leaving their government job, but — you get the point!
All and sundry among the rulers go hoarse guaranteeing good governance in the country, in fact have been doing so for years. However, apparently more of their time, energies and public money are spent in searching and fighting for ‘exceptions’. Out-of-turn promotions, postings for which they don’t qualify, and the like. Remember the extended clandestine hopping from one country to another, (negotiations extravaganza at public expense), for the NRO?
What was it if not an endless exercise of haggling over which side gets greater exceptions (in the guise of amnesties, guarantees, safe passages, withdrawal of cases in the courts, third-term as PM, etc.). Therefore, if the attitude of the rulers does not single-mindedly target the welfare and betterment of the people, without exception, no critical area of the social setup can improve, be it education, health, law and order or economic development.
During his ADCship of the Quaid-i-Azam, Maj Gen Gul Hasan narrates the incident when he got down from the car he was travelling in with the Quaid (no other escorts/bodyguards, by the way) to get a closed railway barrier raised. He was stopped by the real leader and sternly advised patience, because if the rulers didn’t obey the laws, how can the common man be expected to do so.
We weren’t always the way we are now. And for us to begin straightening up, the drive needs to start from the top. That is if good governance is an honest goal and not a mere manipulative expedient slogan.
IMTIAZ PIRACHA
Karachi
AT 2009 World Economic Forum, Davos, as the world leaders seek solutions to remedy the current global meltdown, they must address the creation of a new global financial system in which ethics and morality play a key role: a system that will promote equality around the world and reduce the growing financial and digital gaps between the North and the South.
Due to current economic crunch many of the developing countries around the globe will not be able to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015, that is to:
a. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,
b. Achieve universal primary education,
c. Promote gender equality,
d. Reduce child mortality,
e. Improve maternal health,
f. Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases,
g. Ensure environmental sustainability and
h. promote a global partnership for development.
The world leaders ought to pay attention to what Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and the author of ‘Globalization and its Disconnect’ has said: “…The problem for both (the IMF and the World Bank) is that economic globalisation has outpaced political globalisation.
“Governments used to ensure that capitalism was tempered and the development helped people across society. Now, we are more interdependent and need collective action on a variety of things, though we have yet to create the political structure that allows that to be done in a democratic way.”(Q & A: Joseph Stiglitz, US News and World Report, Sept 18, 2006).
DR A. S. KHAN
Illinois
IN November 2008 the prime minister gave his assurance that the Qadirpur gasfield would not be sold out. That was only after strong protests by OGDCL employees, sadly culminating in ransacking of the privatisation minister’s private residence.
Meanwhile, the formal decision of the cabinet committee on privatisation being very much intact, the loot sale sword has kept hanging over Qadirpur.
Alarmingly, the new privatisation policy would allow management control of the public sector entities to private companies having merely 26 per cent of the share holdings.
The government claims that this would improve efficiency of these companies, rather than merely generating dollars, like did the previous government.
The hollowness of this claim reflects on how these companies are being governed at present. Predominantly incompetent and corrupt personnel, the top management officials, the board directors and holders of newly-created superfluous portfolios have virtually crippled the company businesses, while enjoying up to seven figure plus packages. The dedicated, competent and efficient employees are obviously demoralised and helpless, some even quitting.
To draw an interesting analogy, I recall here, with some modifications, the story of a giant handsome grass hopper who would take long strides over tall grass and wide ravines in the most difficult of the mountain country, setting an example for other species.
The mighty king of the land, however, wanted to bring him under firm control. The king then hired a witch doctor to tame the hopper. The doctor cut the front two legs of the hopper and ordered, ‘jump’, and it still managed a clumsy little jump.
But with its last two legs also severed, the poor hopper lay still. The witch doctor reported that although the hopper had been brought under absolute control, it neither jumped voluntarily, nor when ordered to, and, worse, it simply refused to listen to his majesty’s ‘commandments.
The king at once decreed that entire nuisance species be sold out to expatriates, who would manage them better.
Back to privatisation, no country in the world allows foreign ownership of its strategic petroleum assets; handing over our fully developed field to foreign companies would simply be absurd.
By doing so, the entire exploration activities, led by the OGDCL for well over 40 years, would come to a naught.
The new petroleum policy and privatisation policy are, therefore, perfect recipes for disaster. The struggle of the company employees, the media, the parliamentarians and senators, and also the public at large, is by no means over, to save these strategic assets.
MAJ-GEN (r) PARVEZ AKMAL
Islamabad
ALL across the globe, despite Internet being one of the most sought-after sources of knowledge and information, television has retained its charisma and standing well in the middle of the people’s lives.
In the past few years we have also witnessed coming up of a variety of TV channels of different languages, successfully catering to the needs of different strata of society. Thanks to having access to watching those channels, Pakistani people, in contrast to the past, are much aware of and familiar with issues and problems of the day. Even an innocent rural housewife, in case of access to this knowledge gadget, knows about atrocities in Gaza or who Barack Obama is.
Ironically, despite mushrooming of private television channels, in various languages, one fails to find a single Baloch TV channel on his/her TV screen, forcing one into thinking that the Baloch community is the only one which does not have the choice to enjoy programmes of entertainment and grasp knowledge in their own language.
Running Balochi programmes for a few hours by the state-run PTV is not sufficient enough to cater to the growing needs of Baloch people, scattered all across Balochistan but also living in Karachi and even in parts of middleseastern countries as well.
The rule of the day demands that in the midst of technological advancement, when gaining information and knowledge is just a finger-tip’s click away from one’s reach, the present government should allow opening up of a private Balochi TV channel and unlock the door of proper entertainment and knowledge for Baloch people as well.
SEEMA KHANUM
PASHAMBAY
Karachi
THE first attack by US drones inside Pakistani territory after the new US president has taken over has killed 20 people in two different strikes in North and South Waziristan on Jan 23. It was the biggest attack by US forces after Jan 20 – not in Afghanistan or Iraq – but in Pakistan, the staunch ally of the US!
This attack must have been authorised by the supreme commander of the US forces: the president himself. Has Barack Hussain Obama himself ordered it? And he has ordered the destruction of village homes while he was appointing Richard Holbrooke as Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan on Jan 22.
The officials in Islamabad and the general public in Pakistan expected that such un-understandable attacks would be stopped after the new US president takes over.
Now is the time to come out with straight facts – the government in Islamabad and the chess players in Washington should announce the facts to the public who have been languishing under attacks. I suggest that either these attacks should be stopped at once by the US or Pakistan should withdraw support to Washington against the war in Afghanistan.
M. K. NAQVI
Karachi
THIS is apropos of ‘War of words’ (Jan 27). Sindhi newspaper Kawish is right in saying that the PPP and the PML (N) leaders need to stop their war of words and unite to work seriously and sincerely to promote the inertest of the people of Pakistan.
It says they should return to the position where they were before the present confrontation. The paper warns that the mounting propaganda against democratic forces may hurt the political process and ultimately deal a blow to the hopes and aspirations of the people.
Therefore, it pleads, that political forces need to avoid it in any case for the survival of people and democracy.
Further, I would like to say that the leaders need to focus on the problems that common people of the country have been facing for a long time rather than waste their energy in finding faults with each other.
The most developed economies of the world, such as the US, the UK, China and Japan, are anxious about their situation in view of the recent financial crisis and their leadership is engaged in devising strategies to get out of this crisis.
I wonder that here in our country economic issues are not being tackled seriously and like always politicking is taking precedence over the problems. Our leaders need to be realistic and should response seriously to larger issues facing the country.
AHMED JUNEJO
Hyderabad
IT is nothing short of an irony that big J of Pakistan Cricket has left PCB.
The entire nation, ninus a few, was optimistic about the future of cricket in Pakistan when Javed Miandad assumed charge as director-general but sadly his stay at the PCB has been cut short due to power politics and mismanagement.
Although the PCB chairman has vowed to take up the issue with Miandad on his return from Australia, it seems highly unlikely that some good can be done.
As a nation it is our biggest misfortune that we cannot see a fellow country man doing well for the country and gain recognition, our history is full of such incidents. The bottomline is that Pakistan cricket has suffered yet again and the cricket fans are hoping that there is still some hope.
WASEEM URAIZEE
Karachi
I FULLY support the views of Khan A Shamshad (Jan 29) in his letter on problems of pensioners.
It is not out of place to mention that in most of the countries, including India, pensioners in similar ranks or grade are being paid an equal amount without any discrimination between old and fresh pensioners.
It is in Pakistan that an assistant of grade 11 retiring these days gets either equal or a bit more than what his boss gets in grade 18 who retired 30 years before, and is fortunately still alive to receive this meagre amount. How unfortunate!
The Shariat Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan heard the grievance of the pensioners who won a favourable verdict from the bench. The federal government then went for an appeal and the Supreme Court in 2003 declared the judgment null and void. Since the people’s government is in the centre and is inclined to give relief to its employees, it is time to make appropriate legislation to remove the long-awaited ambiguities affecting the pensioners. I hope that the relief granted to pensioners would not affect the federal budget due in June this year.
KHIZIR FAROOQI
Karachi
THIS is apropos of Hussain Kakal’s letter, ‘South Asians prone to heart disease’ (Jan 21), regarding an ongoing study in South Asian countries sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, England, and reported in Dawn (Jan 19).
The study has identified a single gene mutation exclusively found in four per cent of the population of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka with some presence in Malaysia and Indonesia, but nowhere else, that could cause some 60 million of the 1.5 billion people of South Asia to develop heart disease later in life.
As recent as the fifties and sixties, it was believed that the coronary heart disease was a problem of the rich western countries and occurred rarely and only in the rich in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. In the last four decades it has been amply proven that not only is this disease present in the subcontinent, it occurs at an earlier age, pursues a more aggressive course and results in death at a younger age compared to any other racial or ethnic group.
Studies of different ethnic populations living in the same country have been done in South Africa, the UK and the US, and have shown the same result, i.e. South Asians are more prone to the coronary heart disease due in large measure to a high prevalence of abdominal obesity, type II diabetes and blood lipid (fats) abnormalities plus perhaps other as yet unidentified factors. The genetic abnormality described above helps explain this well-known clinical fact.
How our genetic predisposition interacts with our changing unhealthy lifestyle is another big area of ongoing research. What we are is determined in equal measure by the information coded in our inherited genes acted upon by our environment and lifestyle. While we cannot change our genes (so far that is!) we can certainly change our lifestyle to a healthier one by some very simple modifications. A diet low in refined sugar, animal fats, salt, a regime of daily walk/exercise of at least half an hour, and no smoking would be a very good beginning.
It is absolutely correct that we are in the midst of an epidemic of heart disease while, unlike the developed world, we still have to get rid of our burden of infectious diseases through universal immunisation of our children, supply of safe drinking water and sewage disposal.
It is imperative that more should be done not only by the population at large but by every stakeholder, be they healthcare personnel, the government or the media. Those with a family history of heart disease must initiate preventive measures early in life to make a meaningful impact on this scourge of mankind.
There are many challenges clamouring for the attention of the average Pakistani who is trying to survive one day at a time. One can understand his reluctance to give up small mercies and little pleasures left in his life, but I know no other way to prevent this disease which now is the number killer of the adult Pakistani. Once the disease occurs, the rest is a lifetime of expensive treatments, loss of quality of life and risk of premature death. There is no way out.
At long last we hear that the Pakistan government is planning to set up a commission on cardiovascular diseases with a special mandate to work on preventive strategies for the country. Let us hope something comes out of this.
PROF (DR) AZHAR FARUQUI
Karachi
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