HYDERABAD, May 10: The Hyderabad chapter of the Awami National Party has condemned contract system in factories and lashed out at the employers for circumventing the Minimum Wages Act in connivance with labour officials.

The party leaders said at “Jashn-i-Jamhooriat” public meeting held in a ground of the Zeal Pak Cement Factory on Friday night that the factory owners were depriving workers of their fundamental human rights, including the right to form trade unions.

The meeting adopted over a dozen resolutions demanding that the workers should not be made to work for more than eight hours and should be paid double overtime in accordance with labour laws.

The meeting said that majority of employees working in industrial units and commercial organisations were neither issued appointment letters nor registered with the EOBI and SESSI and demanded that all the workers should be issued appointment letters and registered under the social security scheme and EOBI.

The meeting welcomed the prime minister’s announcement restoring the right of unionism, revoking IRO-2002 and raising minimum wages to Rs6,000 per month and demanded that the announcement should be implemented in letter and spirit.

The meeting condemned the group system under which an entire group of workers was brought from other provinces to run various industrial units and pointed out that this was creating inter-provincial hatred.

The meeting demanded that the practice should be stopped forthwith to provide jobs to local people and Jahez grant scheme should be transferred to provinces, which was presently being managed by the governing body of the Workers Welfare Fund Islamabad.

The meeting pointed out that one model school in Hyderabad for the workers’ children was not enough, therefore, two more schools should be established and 10,000 flats should be constructed in the labour city instead of 5,000.

The meeting cautioned the coalition government that if it failed to take notice of skyrocketing prices of consumer goods, people would not be satisfied only with the slogans of democracy.

The meeting called for full provincial autonomy for the federating units and said that the president of Pakistan should be elected from all the four provinces.

The meeting supported independence of judiciary and freedom of press and demanded and end to army dictatorship and corruption in the country.

The meeting demanded that the perpetrators of May 12 and April 9 bloody incidents should be brought to book and condemned the incident of firing, murders, loot and plunder of vehicles coming from and going to Punjab and NWFP on the National Highway in Kashmore.