SWABI: Leaders of Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF) have demanded of the government to increase the minimum wage of unskilled employees from Rs14,000 to Rs30,000 a month in the upcoming federal budget.

They were speaking at the ‘Rabita’ programme of Gandhara Union of Journalists on “Budget 2017-18: expectations of the workers” here on Friday. They said that the minimum wage of unskilled workers was increased from Rs13,000 to Rs14,000 in the 2016-17 budget, but it had not been fully implemented.

They said that the industrialists-cum-politicians had successfully dodged the workers who could not challenge the economically cogent and politically strong entrepreneurs of the country.

PWF leader Zahoor Awan said that the minimum wage should be increased in line with the rate of inflation and then strictly implemented. He said that the jurisdiction of Payment Wage Authority should be extended to all categories of workers of formal and informal economy, including agriculture, home-based and domestic workers and employees of other informal sectors.

“The case of wage disputes must be heard and decided expeditiously,” he stressed.

Mr Awan said that he had also written to the prime minister, chief ministers and federal finance minister that the recent rate of minimum wage of Rs14,000 was far less than the required minimum budget for a family of five i.e. Rs40,519 in Jan 2017.

“The trade unions demand that the living wage should be fixed at not less than Rs30,000 for all workers in Pakistan,” he quoted from the letter.

About the 2013 election manifesto of PML-N, he claimed that it had promised that the minimum wage of workers would be gradually enhanced. He said that the political parties had been violating their manifestos and once they assumed power they adopted anti-workers policies.

CDA Mazdoor Union general secretary Chaudhry Mohammad Yaseen said that agriculture, construction, manufacturing, hotel and transport were among the lowest wage paying sectors in the country.

Shaukat Ali Anjum, national coordinator of PWF, said that continuing high inflation had eroded the purchasing power of poor workers.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2017