HYDERABAD: All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions Vice President Mehboob Ali Qureshi and All Pakistan Wapda Electric Workers Union, Sindh General Secretary Iqbal Ahmed Khan have expressed their concern over closure of labour courts since October last year.

In their joint statement issued here on Thursday, they said that workers’ problems were increasing but judges were not being appointed in these courts to dispose of their cases.

They said that the Labour Court-VI has been without a judge since Oct 2025, and added that around 300 labourers, including women, were awaiting justice in their cases.

The leaders said that decisions in these cases were supposed to be announced within 90 days as per the law. They observed that the Sindh labour department was perhaps least bothered about the situation.

They noted that the Hyderabad Water & Sewerage Corporation had not been paying salaries to its employees for the last 20 months although it was receiving revenues through consumers’ bills. They said that the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) was not paying liabilities to its employees although it was earning through plot sales.

The leaders also said the government used to increase the minimum wage every year which now stood at Rs43,000 per month, but unfortunately the law was not being followed by private concerns and industrial units.

Contractors were paying just Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 per month to their workers under the contract system and if any workers resorted to protest over it, they were threatened with retrenchment, the leaders said.

They said the employees attaining 60 years of age were not getting pension in the private sector, and such a practice was continuing unabated, but the regulatory authorities would never move against them.

They announced that a protest over these issues would be held on Friday (Oct 16) in Hyderabad.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2026