Labour has a strong case

THE government’s inability to accommodate in the new law on industrial relations the proposals jointly made by workers and employers continues to cause anxiety among trade unions. It is time that all contentious issues were resolved.

The prime minister had made workers happy when he promised to scrap the anti-labour provisions of the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) of 2002. The government did well to redeem this pledge by pushing the draft of a new law through parliament before 2008 ended. It did not do well by ignoring the workers’ objections to the draft legislation.

The problem arose when the labour ministry failed to take into account the fairly well-articulated views of the trade unions and the Workers-Employers Bilateral Council of Pakistan (Webcop). These views had been presented before Gen Musharraf arbitrarily enforced the IRO 2002 (the 91st ordinance of 2002, promulgated a fortnight after a new National Assembly had been elected). They were advanced at the numerous meetings held to scrutinise the ordinance during 2002-2008 and again after the present government introduced its industrial relations bill first in the Senate and later on in the National Assembly.

Unfortunately, the measure was adopted by the National Assembly while the PML-N had walked out of the chamber, and this lack of interest in labour’s cause could only be regretted. After all, labour is one of the most important classes, even if some people do not consider it as the most important class, and its affairs should be decided after the broadest possible consensus.

That the new law has done away with some of the obnoxious features of the IRO 2002 cannot be disputed. For instance, the labour appellate tribunal that had been abolished in 2002 has been revived. Also, the provision that barred the reinstatement of a wrongfully sacked trade union office-bearer has been dropped. However, it was wrong to treat the 2002 law as bad from end to end. Trade union organisations had repeatedly pointed out that while some provisions of the 2002 ordinance violated workers’ rights others were, in fact, an improvement on the previous law. The need to retain the latter parts of the IRO 2002 was not realised.

Unfortunately, official draftsmen often cannot resist the temptation to borrow texts from earlier legislative instruments. This obviously happened while the IRA 2008 was drafted and recourse was made to the IRO of 1969. The latter enactment, a product of the Yahya regime’s brief romance with labour, was somewhat better than the Ayub regime’s law on the subject, but it cannot be considered good enough in 2009. No surprise then that labour has been obliged to agitate for corrections in the new legislation.

The workers’ principal grievances are that apart from the replacement of some fair provisions of the IRO 2002 with not-so-fair clauses, the suggestions made by Webcop have not been heeded nor has due respect been paid to some basic ILO conventions.

Specifically, labour representatives argue that the right to form unions has been denied to a very large number of employees (one estimate puts the number of excluded workers at around 30 million), that ‘contractor’ — the bane of organised labour — has not been defined, the term ‘settlement’ has been defined in a manner that undercuts the status of the collective bargaining agent (CBA), the definitions of ‘workers’ and ‘workmen’ are not adequate, the concession to any two unions to form a federation will weaken the national federations/confederations, and the plea for penal sentence as punishment for the violation of labour laws has been wrongly rejected.

A more fundamental objection is that the term of a CBA that had been raised from two to three years in 2002 has again been fixed at two years. The wrong done to labour is manifest. Likewise, the lowering of the status of the presiding officer of a labour court, from a high court judge to a district judge, and the grant of right to choose presiding officers for labour courts, the labour tribunals and the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) to the executive by doing away with consultation with chief justices cannot be defended.

There are many other points that need to be sorted out through negotiations.

A procedure for improving the new law was outlined by the leader of the house in the Senate and inter-provincial coordination minister Raza Rabbani, in November last. For some inexplicable reason, he described the Industrial Relations Act 2008 as an interim measure that was going to lapse on April 30, 2010. Before that a tripartite labour conference would be held and fresh legislation drafted.

This was before the Mumbai terrorist outrage which could have diverted the government’s attention to matters considered more vital than ensuring labour’s contentment. However, it should be obvious to policymakers that efforts to secure labour’s satisfaction with the conditions and terms of work is necessary at all times, even in crisis situations as a happy workforce not only keeps the wheels of production running but also strengthens national security. It will thus not be fair to wait until the spring of 2010 for redressing labour’s grievances. The holding of a tripartite conference does not seem necessary to finalise amendments to the law but if the conditions of fresh consultations cannot be waived, let this be done over the next few months.

Indeed, a revival of the scheme of tripartite conferences and formulation of a labour policy after regular intervals has become necessary. The creation of Webcop some years ago was designed to provide an institutional framework for regular dialogue between the government on one side and representatives of labour and employers on the other. An evaluation of its usefulness has become due, particularly in view of the disappointment caused to workers, and perhaps to employers too, by the lack of official interest in its recommendations. There is good reason to make Webcop more effective.

However, there is no substitute for a tripartite labour conference which had acquired the prestige due to it in the period before independence. The system was somehow kept alive until it succumbed to Gen Zia’s arbitrary rule. The basic principle underlying the tripartite consultation was that the state played a just referee’s role in mediating between the camps of the workers and employers. The abandonment of this role has caused much harm to the nation. In a country like Pakistan, such a role is still important. Besides, a tripartite conference offers an opportunity to allow the community to debate, or at least become familiar with, the issues that concern the producers of national wealth. That should again be recognised as an essential part of democratic governance.

Since the system of drawing up labour policies has been given up, debate on labour’s rights and interests in parliament has become rare. If it is not feasible to draw up a labour policy now and then it should not be too difficult to put an annual statement on the state of labour on the parliament’s tables and persuade the legislators to address the subject at least one day each year.

Swat: the other view

THE ongoing insurgency in Swat has spawned a heated debate in the media. For some it is a class war between the landless and the land-owning elite.

Others believe it to be a global jihadist agenda spearheaded by rigid Al Qaeda-led Wahabi elements. Here it is important to add personal journalistic observations to help understand another dimension to the story of Swat where negligence on the part of state institutions, parochial political interests and the naiveté of the rural folk have given birth to a militant culture that thrives on vandalism, brutality and anarchy.

In June 2007, while in Swat, it was suggested that I interview Maulana Fazlullah because of his increasing popularity. But at that time many considered him to be just another black-turbaned cleric riding on horseback to preach Stone Age values. In fact, the firebrand Fazlullah was getting as popular as US radio priest Father Coughlin who shot to fame in the early 1930s. Locally known as ‘Redoo Mullah’ (Maulana Radio) at that time, Fazlullah spat fire and venom on the state’s policies, condemning every liberal institution. His campaign for establishing a madressah in Swat was at its peak. Naïve women generously donated jewellery and equally naïve men their hard cash, not knowing how dearly they would pay for their endeavours in the days to come.

Visiting Swat again in early July, I found some 40 cleric-owned FM channels working in a radius of between 10 to 40 kilometres. Maulana Fazlullah was on top of his game. His expert oratory skills made him the most popular radio cleric. One wondered how a local mullah and school and madressah dropout used the same propaganda techniques that were developed in 1818 after extensive research by the Creel Committee members in the US and used to lethal effect by the Allied forces against Germany. Youngsters sat outside their roadside houses enjoying his state-bashing sermons.

It was disturbing to note that the state authorities let this mess go unchecked. Even more bizarre was the absence of any liberal source of entertainment to offset the ongoing propaganda. This was partly explained when a local tailor Iqbal Ali told me about the FM device he had purchased for entertainment. Predictably, Iqbal started receiving threatening calls. Unexpectedly, some officials politely advised him to withdraw in favour of the clerics. Similarly, an Afghan cleric had also launched an FM station in the vicinity of Tehsil Matta and used to broadcast sermons against Fazlullah. His pupil later revealed that in the last call he received from his teacher, the latter was desperately crying for help, following which he disappeared.

At that time, everything in Swat revolved around Fazlullah. It seemed that strong forces were imposing a militant mindset on the people of Swat, going about this job in an organised fashion. In this strategy, the MMA provincial government could not escape blame for offering Swat on a platter to the militants.

One by one anti-Fazlullah officials were replaced by more docile ones. The then district coordination officer had the reputation of being an ‘official Talib’. One MMA minister from Swat said, “Fazlullah is doing exactly what we want but cannot do.” Besides MMA, a federal minister and Musharraf aide sent rice-filled degs to Imam Dheri where Fazlullah was based. Similarly, local influential figures also tried to woo Fazlullah by sending material for the construction of his seminary.

This approach disillusioned Swat’s liberal circles who got the impression that all developments in Swat were part of a larger game plan and the northwestern terrains of Gut and Peuchar were the epicentre of the militants’ network. Conspiracy theories have it that Sufi Mohammad-led Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi activists have been living in this terrain since 1995 when they were flushed out from Swat. One TNSM leader accepted that the area had been used for jihadi activities and ‘mujahideen’ in the past lived in the Osheri Dara near Peuchar. They declared Peuchar a paradise for militants. Denizens of Peuchar also feared that their area is important because of its strategic depth and access to Afghanistan via the inaccessible thick-forested mountains bordering the Kunar province of Afghanistan.

Today, it is not unusual to find militants concentrated in the valleys carrying out successful raids in downtown Swat and also providing support to Baitullah-led Taliban in Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies via Lower Dir. However, it is hard to believe that state intelligence agencies were unable to understand the networking of the militants in Peuchar, something the common people feared much before the military operation.

To record Fazlullah’s first-ever, on-camera interview, I reached Imam Dheri on July 6, 2007. In the presence of his shura member Muslim Khan, I found Fazlullah unfolding his vision for Swat. It was hard to accept it then, but now like other Swatis I believe him. To my question about the future of Swat, he replied, “I see that whatever the [Musharraf] government is doing in Swat is utter failure. It is possible that these policies might lead to his downfall soon. This does not mean the end of a government and the start of another one but this would be the end of the state itself.” He added, “If force is used against us, then this time the case will be different from Jamia Hafsa. There were children locked inside the four walls there, but we have trained people — and mountains also. We surely will be a hard nut for the state to crack.”

Fazlullah did not stop here. He warned the high-ups, “Once I am killed, or disappear or run away from here it will be hard to control the situation.” When Fazlullah was threatening the state and government, his words were full of conviction as if they were part of a written script.

A leaf from the life history of Miangul Jehanzeb recorded by Fredrik Barth in his book The Last Wali of Swat is relevant even today. The book quotes Miangul Jehanzeb as saying: “My father (Abdul Wadood alias Baacha sahib) always used to tell me that a pir (religious leader) and a ruler cannot last together. So one, and one only, should be the ruler.

And if you [Miangul Jehanzeb] are the ruler, you have to limit the influence of the pir and if you cannot remove his influence, you can at least remove him. When he created the state, he chased out all those pirs who used to exercise political influence over the people.”

Blaming foreign workers for the crisis

THE British economy is shrinking, unemployment is soaring, insecurity is rife — no wonder people are angry. As wildcat strikes against foreign workers spread across Britain, people who fear for their own jobs may feel sympathetic. But however understandable the strikers’ emotions may be, they have got it all wrong.

Foreign workers are not responsible for the mess we’re in; the financial crisis is. Blame bankers (British and foreign), finger blase regulators and blinkered politicians, spread responsibility among everyone who piled on debt and gambled on house prices — but don’t scapegoat Italian oil workers.

Nor would kicking out foreign workers create more jobs for British people.

The notion that there is a fixed number of jobs to go around is a nonsense. Workers (foreign or otherwise) not only take jobs, they also create them. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, should have known better than to legitimise the old canard of “British jobs for British workers” in his 2007 conference speech. He should eat his words.

Fewer foreigners around would mean even less spending in the shops, and so cost British people their jobs. Chucking foreign employees out would cause further dislocation to businesses already struggling with shrivelled credit and collapsing demand. It would play havoc with public services, depriving patients of doctors and nurses, the elderly of carers, and children of teachers. It would plunge the economy into an even bigger hole — and we’d end up with fewer jobs for British people, not more.

Let’s be clear: if British workers are being discriminated against that is unacceptable. It would be a breach of both British and EU law. But there is no evidence of that. What the strikers appear to want is that foreign workers be discriminated against — and that too is unacceptable.

The free movement of labour is not only economically beneficial and morally right, it is a legal requirement of EU membership. If Britain were to discriminate against other European workers, what is to stop other EU countries discriminating against British ones? Some two million Brits are thought to work in another EU country — do we want to put their jobs at risk too?

During the boom years when the pound was overvalued, Britain attracted workers from around the EU. But with the UK economy now predicted to be hardest hit by the global recession, Brits may feel tempted to seek work on the continent. That’s what happened when unemployment reached three million in the 1980s, as workers sought work in Germany and elsewhere.

Pundits and politicians are forever intoning that we must not fall prey to protectionism. Barricading ourselves off from outsiders leads not to salvation, but to economic depression and political extremism. That’s one reason why the EU, with its single market, impartial regulations and common political institutions, is so important. Reverting to a policy of each to his own, beggar-thy-neighbour, and devil take the hindmost, would cause the EU to unravel.

That would delight the UK’s Europhobes, far right and various other rancid fellow-travellers. But the trade union and wider Labour movement should have no truck with it. Solidarity does not stop at the water’s edge. The EU is a champion of workers’ rights. And if the flaws of financial globalisation are to be fixed — and climate change curbed — it will be in partnership with Europe, not against it.

Now of all times the British left should not be making common cause with has rightly been called “the politics of xenophobia”.

The writer is the author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them.

— The Guardian, London