HYDERABAD, Dec 27: The National Labour Federation (NLF) has urged the Sindh government to make it binding on industrial units under law to employ 60 per cent of workforce from local population in each industrial unit.

NLF Sindh President Rana Mehmood Ali Khan told a news conference at the local press club on Wednesday that the industrial units in the province, which had imposed contract system for four years, imported cheap labour from other provinces. The employer on the one hand deprive them of all the facilities guaranteed under labour laws while on the other the close the door on local population, he said.

Mr Khan urged that the Sindh government should legislate laws making it mandatory for the industrial units to employ at least 60 per cent of workforce from local population. Price hike, rampant unemployment, poverty, retrenchments and job insecurity had already wretched the workers’ lives, he said.

He rejected the Sindh Labour Department’s claim that the workers were getting Rs4,000 per month with effect from July 2006 in accordance with the federal finance act. In reality 60 per cent of workers were receiving even less than Rs3,000 a month, he said.

The employers did not issue appointment letters, attendance cards or factory cards to a large number of workers making it almost impossible for them to approach a labour court to get their grievances redressed, he said.

Group insurance was mandatory under labour laws which entitled the legal heirs to Rs200,000 compensation at the time of a worker’s death but the employers had long ago forsaken the practice to avoid paying compensation to thousands of widows and orphans, he said.

Mr Khan said that the Institute of Social Security had turned into a den of corruption, its ambulances were in the possession of staff, doctors and paramedical staff of Polyclinic Hyderabad remained absent during the second and third shift and the patients were being given spurious drugs.

The Employees Old age Benefit Institution had become completely ineffective. First I issued pension books through brokers and then added to the pensioners difficulties by authorising National Bank to pay pensions, he said.

Mr Khan condemned the ban on trade unions in Karachi shipyard and demanded that the ban should be lifted. He termed the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 2002 as a black law and said that Gen Pervez Musharraf had announced at a labour convention on December 27, 2004 that the IRO would be amended but it nothing happened till this day, he said.

The law had curbed the freedom of trade unions made it extremely difficult for workers to seek justice. Musharraf's government had economically crippled the people and working class and damaged the country’s ideological identity, he said.