SWABI, May 1: Instead of eight-hour duty the workers in the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate have been forced to work for 12 hours and that too at a nominal and delayed payment.

The leaders of the Gadoon Labour Federation said in their May Day message on Monday that according to the labour

laws no one should be forced to work for more than eight hours and in case of extra- work extra payment should be made to them. They said that establishment of labour unions strictly prohibited and the already established unions in some units were absolutely titular.

They said since 1993 the labourers were not allowed to set up their unions for the protection of their rights and were also not getting their remuneration according to their job.

They alleged that the NWFP government also failed to take remedial measures for the protection of the workers To make the approach of the labourers more difficult to the assistant labour director, his office was shifted to the district headquarter from Topi, they said.

The labour officials they said had always followed the industrialists policy and never worked for labourers rights. Both the industrialists and labour officials they said have remained in league to exploit the workers.

They demanded that the government should punish those industrialists who had exploited the labourers.