RAWALPINDI: Leaders of Awami Workers Party (AWP) Punjab chapter said working people were facing an existential threat from the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic crash it has caused.

In their message in connection with the Labour Day, they said the crisis had exposed the destructive inequality of the capitalist order and the incompetence of the ruling class as millions of workers had lost their jobs and incomes and millions more were at the risk of losing their livelihoods altogether in Pakistan and across the world.

They said unless radical changes were made to the economy to prioritise fulfillment of the basic needs of the working majority, including basic income, paid leave, healthcare, housing, shelter and utilities, there would be widespread suffering.

They called for immediate measures for the protection of the lives, health and livelihoods of essential workers, especially healthcare workers, who were protesting against lack of PPE across Punjab, Balochistan and other provinces.

“The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus increasingly appears to be the defining crisis of our lifetimes. This May Day we are witnessing layoffs of thousands of workers across the county, the system is failing to guarantee our lives and livelihoods,” said Abida Chaudhry, the secretary general of AWP Punjab.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the truth of capitalism, we are witnessing daily wagers losing their livelihoods, healthcare workers demanding PPE and unavailability of end care life support equipment across the world, including in Pakistan,” she added.

AWP Punjab President Ammar Rashid said the government had failed in protecting the health and livelihoods of the people during the coronavirus pandemic and instead seemed to be more interested in securing profits for its industrialist backers and the construction industry.

He said the prime minister claimed to be concerned about workers but was unwilling to take basic actions to address their needs like regularising katchi abadis, reducing the defence budget to increase the budget for health, social protection and healthcare or undertaking land reform.

He said the prime minister was more willing to endanger workers by sending them to work rather than taking redistributive steps needed to protect them.

He said the government should immediately announce a basic income of at least Rs25,000 for the 80pc of households whose incomes were vulnerable, for the period of the emergency.

“The crisis has exposed the criminally neglected state of public healthcare in the country after decades of privatisation under neoliberalism as governments now scramble to build emergency hospital capacity, buy ventilators and struggle to provide life-saving protective equipment to health workers at the risk of infection,” added the information secretary of the party, Tooba Syed.

“Doctors have been on hunger strike due to lack of protective equipment.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2020