ISLAMABAD, July 12: The new labour policy is ready and likely to be announced in the next 20 days after the cabinet approval, said Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis, Mr Owais Ghani while talking to Dawn on Friday.

The last labour policy was enforced in 1972 and since then no amount of government effort could win over the support of both the employers and the employees to shape a new policy to meet the needs of the changing industrial environment, the minister said.

The new policy will effectively focus on eliminating the child labour, bonded labour and gender discrimination problems from Pakistan, he said, adding that an effort had been made to bring the agriculture sector in the purview of the labour laws, especially the newly-introduced corporate agriculture.

Similarly, the contractor hiring employees for sub-contracting will be bound to implement a minimum wage and workers welfare related laws under the policy.

The announcement of the new labour policy will be a “landmark achievement” of the military government as no previous military or civil government had a success in bringing the stake-holders — the employees and employers — together to agree on some give-and-take, the minister claimed.

The draft labour policy has been delivered to both the country’s representative labour leadership and the employers “who will hopefully return the same with their final remarks to enable the ministry submit its summary to the president,” the minister said.

“Nothing in black and white was left by anyone of the previous governments to provide us any guidance for drawing up a new policy,” Ghani said, and added: “We have consulted various labour policies of a number of developed countries like the Britain and also the ILO conventions besides putting together the consensus recommendations by the employers’ and employees’ representatives.”

The government has decided to reduce its “interventionist role” to the minimum by inculcating in the employers and the employees the spirit of bilateral dialogue.

The labour judicial system is being strengthened through upgrading the labour courts and making it easier to have access to the higher courts for timely redressal of grievances, the minister added.

To simplify and shorten the judicial process, the Labour Appellate tribunal has been abolished under the new policy as the petitioner would be able to move the high court directly to get remedy after failing in the labour court.

The new policy will also rationalize, consolidate and reduce to about 6 the laws governing the labour sector, from the present over 50, by amalgamating some of them, and abolishing the others. They included Minimum Wages Ordinance, Employment Matters and Safety Ordinance, laws pertaining to labour welfare and human resources development.

The minister said the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) was also ready and will be promulgated after the approval of the president.

The government’s regulatory authority will be reduced to the minimum as it will only intervene when the bilateral dialogue will fail.

The policy gives sufficient powers to the tripartite boards for the solution of inter-labour and inter-employer problems. In bringing together the recommendations on employer-related matters, he said, the employer representatives have extended their best cooperation to the government.