LAHORE, March 8: Opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly Qasim Zia has said PPP governments did commit mistakes. “We admit we could not formulate a labour policy during our two tenures. Now the party has realised that it has to focus on politics of issues,” Mr Zia said on Wednesday.

“But we did provide employment to the poor, the price of which Benazir Bhutto is paying now in the form of cases,” he told participants in a meeting organized by the All Pakistan Railway Ticket Collectors Association at the Lahore Press Club.

The PPP, after regaining power for the third time soon, would repeal all black laws that affect the labour class of the country. The PPP restored trade union activities during its two regimes.

Lahore PPP leader and former president of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry Mian Misbahur Rahman and Advocate Kazim Khan also attended the meeting organised to discuss the problems the railway ticket collectors were facing at the hands of the PR administration.

Association’s central leaders Nawaz Mirza demanded better pay scales for ticket collectors and end to injustice to them. He strongly opposed the PR administration move to hand over the ticket checking to PRACS which was a private company.

PPP activist Bushra Malik also spoke at the meeting participated in by representatives of labour and teacher organisations.