KARACHI, June 26: A three-day national consultation on labour issues, held here on Monday, rejected the recent amendments to labour laws through the finance bill ‘another illegal and unconstitutional act’ by the government.

“Increasing working hours to force workers, including women, to stay in factories till 10pm is aimed at further exploiting workers, who are already marginalised,” said a declaration issued at the end of the moot, held at the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER).

“This is unacceptable… we reject these changes in labour laws and demand their withdrawal,” says a resolution adopted by about 40 delegates who attended the consultation as representatives of the All-Pakistan Textile Workers Union, All-Pakistan Road Transport Workers Union, All-Pakistan Bhatta Mazdoor Union and All-Pakistan Light Engineering Workers Union.

Besides discussing sectoral issues, the delegates took a serious note of the amendments declaring the same as ‘violation of ILO Conventions’.

The federal government, by amending to the labour laws through the finance bill, has increased the working hours of from 8 hours to 12 hours, and has asked women workers to work till 10pm. The original laws prohibit setting working hours women to start before sunrise or continue after sunset. Besides, hours of overtime have also been increased from 150 to 624 hours a year.

A statement released by PILER stated that the four labour unions had decided to launch a joint struggle for the restoration of eight-hour a day work, social security for all workers, increase in minimum wage slab and its implementation and end to forced labour, particularly in brick kilns. A detailed programme of the struggle would be released soon, it added.

Karamat Ali, Executive Director of the PILER, while addressing the concluding session of the moot, said that the government could not make fundamental changes in Labour Laws. He said the process adopted for the purpose was also unconstitutional.