LAHORE: A protest demonstration was held outside the Labour Department’s south office in the city for the rights of workers under the aegis of Haqooq-e-Khalq Party.

Haqooq-e-Khalq Party’s Punjab president Baba Latif Ansari said the Punjab government had fixed the minimum wages of workers at Rs25,000 a month but it was not being implemented by the government. He said the factory management harassed the workers who demanded their rights and dismissed them from services without paying their dues.

He said the workers were threatened and were not allowed to leave their factories to participate in the demonstration and thus their fundamental right to associate for their cause was suppressed. He set a 15-day ultimatum for the labour department to implement the labour laws otherwise, there would be action by the workers of Lahore as it happened in Faisalabad.

Central general secretary Ammar Ali Jan said the basic responsibility of the labour department was to protect the rights of the workers and save them from the greed and evil of the seths, but the department was siding with the factory owners.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2022