Despite being a signatory to ILO conventions, Islamabad continues with its anti-people drive. If the government itself flouts labour laws, who is going to implement them, wonders trade unionist Khurshid Ahmad

FOR the last several years, May Day rallies have become more of a ritual, but this year the distance between the ritual and the reality was more stark than ever, for the government’s May Day gift to the working classes was a big jolt to the already weakened trade union movement. The National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC), the apex judicial body for industrial workers, had been almost non-functional for the last year or so because the government failed to appoint judges of superior courts as its chairperson and members, and when the last of its members retired on April 30, no replacement was notified. So on May Day 2004, the country stood without any machinery to resolve industrial conflicts.

For all practical purposes, this year also saw the culmination of the logical end which the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) envisioned when enforced in 2000 in the face of stiff opposition by all the trade union bodies left and right. The IRO virtually does not recognize trade unions and makes the Worker-Employer Bilateral Council of Pakistan (WEBCOP) the alternative platform.

This is certainly an uncertain period for trade unions in Pakistan and elsewhere as they are being sidelined systematically. Dawn Magazine recently spoke to Khurshid Ahmad, the Secretary-General of the Pakistan Workers Confederation, which is an alliance of nine major trade union federations of the country, since it was formed in 1994 and who is representing the working classes of Pakistan as a member of the ILO governing body since 1972. The following are the excerpts from the interview:
 

Q. Why have almost all trade unions been opposing the new IRO?

A. The new IRO is a deliberate attempt to weaken, rather sideline and render ineffective, the trade union movement by taking away many basic rights by way of bringing about a basic change in labour legislation. We were amazed to see the new law which has physically taken the right to conduct trade union and collective bargaining. It contravenes the basic ILO standards, is derogatory to the world body’s conventions (No 87 and 98) that ensure the right to form associations and agitate and strike. Islamabad has ratified the ILO conventions, but continues to flout their spirit by promulgating the IRO 2002.

The new law is also violative of the 1973 constitution’s provision on fundamental rights. It is drastically in conflict with the recommendations of a tripartite conference convened in 2001 to work out a basis of the new labour policy. I am afraid the new law has taken into account none of the conference recommendations.

The new set of legislations is heavily tilted in favour of the employer, and abridges in a big way the right of the working classes. The new law vests in the registrar the right to register or refuse registration of new trade unions. The registration clause is now subject to prior notice to the employer, which is virtually seeking the permission of a mill-owner whether a union should be established or not.

Another anomalous provision in the new IRO is that it bars trade union activities in a number of public-sector undertakings like Pakistan Railways, PIA, KESC, Pakistan Mint, ports, export processing zones etc. The informal sector and farm workers have also been kept away from the legal bounds.
 

Q. But these undertakings were already under the Essential Services Act where trade union activity was not permitted.

A. Yes, and that is exactly the reason for our opposition to the IRO, 2000. The tripartite conference made reasonable recommendations to partly allow trade union activities in some of these undertakings. This was a favoured recommendation and all of us agreed on this. But when the law was promulgated, it was nowhere. I may say without fear of contradiction that the IRO is a draconian law; this is anti-labour; this is anti-people. This is a crude manifestation of the government’s blind commitment to the donor agencies.
 

Q. Trade unions have been working despite all these odds. But this time they seem to have been effectively rendered ineffective and redundant. Can it possibly be achieved with a single legislation?

A. When the IRO was promulgated, a Presidential Order also became effective under which the services of all the public-sector employees can be terminated without prior notice. For this the bureaucracy has been equipped with special powers to remove employees from any job regardless of their employment status.

Certain legal amendments introduced by the previous government barred bank employees from forming trade unions. The addition of Section 27-B in the Banking Companies Ordinance in 1998 took away the right to freedom of association in the banking sector. In the same year, the Service Tribunal Act was amended to add Section 2-A to debar government and semi-government employees from seeking legal relief from labour courts.

As for the labour judiciary, its power and jurisdiction has sufficiently been curtailed. Through an amendment, which is part of the new IRO, the NIRC’s power to grant relief to workers and trade unions against unfair labour practice has been withdrawn. In fact, the whole definition of ‘unfair labour practice’ has been changed in the IRO. The labour courts now cannot reinstate a worker whose services get terminated for taking part in union activities.
 

Q. The new law was enforced without much practical resistance. This does show how weak trade unions have become. What do you say on that?

A. The trade union movement in Pakistan was never as strong as it was elsewhere in the world. The reason was that we almost had no industry, and farm workers and tillers of the land were not organized enough to form unions. In later years, most of the industry was set up by the feudals, and their approach in administering a mill was no different from the way they used to manage their fiefdoms. Thus the power our trade unions derived from has always been the public sector.

But the union grew weaker when the government withdrew most of its securities and guarantees. It is now pro-employer and anti-labour in approach. While it shuts legal and judicial door on the worker, it allows a free hand to the employer to hire and fire workers at will, to employ workforce on contract and deny and ignore all legal safeguards that were provided in the past to strike a worker-proprietor balance for industrial peace. The industrial peace now has a new meaning; it allows crushing the workforce with the help of laws.

The latest example is the industrial policies announced by Punjab and Sindh. It bars the Labour Department from conducting any inspection of industries during the first year of establishment. After this period, too, a labour inspector will enter mills by permission. If the government itself flouts labour laws, who is going to implement them?
 

Q. Has the ILO has ever taken notice of labour legislation in Pakistan?

A. Islamabad ratified ILO Conventions 87 and 98 to ensure basic trade union rights to workers with a commitment that all labour legislation would be brought into conformity with the two conventions. For about three decades, the ILO has been seeking report on the pace of implementation. On most occasions, the government repeatedly said it was taking measures. On some occasions, the ILO communications were not even acknowledged. I am witness to the ILO displeasure at a number of meetings. Once the ILO stopped short of blacklisting Islamabad for not implementing the conventions. But nothing has worked.

As for the IRO 2000, the ILO’s Freedom of Association Committee clearly said in its report (No 330) that it is highly restrictive to accepted trade union norms and freedom of association as enunciated in Conventions 87 and 98. The report was sent in January 2003. The ILO reiterated its stance in its annual report and the chapter on Pakistan spelled out the measures taken to curb trade union rights. The latest ILO report has said that the gulf between the rich and the poor has widened further since 2002. It specifically says 20 per cent of the rich have gone richer, and 20 per cent poor have grown poorer over the period.