LAHORE, June 29: As labour leaders resolve to protest against increased working hours, here is a glimpse into their problems, for which they put the blame squarely on lopsided government policies: Life brings no respite for the 15,000 women working in factories in the Kot Lakhpat area. Only some 1,000 have proof of their employment; the rest are hired on a daily basis, and can easily be shunted out by factory owners.
Add to this occupational hazard, no bonus, no overtime, no health benefits and now, the recent amendment to the Factories Act of 1934, increasing the daily working hours from 10 to 12, and the picture becomes one of gloom and hopelessness.
A countrywide call to protest on July 7 against this arbitrary decision of the government has been given by the National Trade Union Federation, which includes 7,249 registered trade unions in the country, encompassing a membership of 869,000 trade unionists. The amendment cuts across the genders, to adversely affect both men and women workers.
“Considering the state of trade unions in Pakistan, the number of members is reducing. Since the people holding powerful offices in government are the rich feudal lords and industrialists, allowing trade unions to remain active goes against their interests. A proof of that is the Industrial Relations Ordinance, forced on us in 2002 under which all trade unions were banned,” says Gulzar Chaudhry, secretary-general of the All-Pakistan Trade Unions Federation.
Statistics, as provided by the federal labour ministry, reveal that the total labour force of Pakistan is approximately 37.15 million, with 47 per cent working in agriculture, 10.5 per cent in the manufacturing and mining sectors and the remaining 42.5 per cent in various other professions. Most of them are contractual labour, and like their women counterparts have no right to legal recourse in case of a summary dismissal.
The amendment, a clear violation of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention, and included as part of the financial bill 2006, is questioned by various labour organizations, and has qualified for condemnation by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
“The finance bill in itself is illegal and has not been put through the Senate for discussion. Any change in labour laws in this way tantamounts to violation of Article 73 of the Constitution,” asserts HRCP secretary-general Iqbal Haider.
Not that the labour force had it easy prior to the amended Factories Act of 1934. The Industrial Relations Ordinance, 2002, adopted on Oct 29, 2002, repealing the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969, which incorporated the three independent bodies of the Works Council, the Management Committee and the Joint Management Board, divested the trade unions of the right to strike. A further curtailment of the labour rights, embodied in the IRO, was the instruction given to the courts not to reinstate workers summoning a strike, giving a free hand to the employer to sack and fine a worker.
“We work under subhuman conditions and are not even allowed to protest. Anybody daring to do that is fired on the spot and doesn’t even have the backing of the judiciary,” laments Gulzar Chaudhry.
Before the IRO 2002, a worker could appeal in a Labour Appellate Tribunal, but after its abolition under the ordinance the appellate procedure has changed at the provincial level. Appeals of Labour Court decisions lie directly with the high courts.
The case of Mirza Akbar Ali, working at a local motorcycle manufacturing factory and a part-time newspaper hawker, is pending with the Lahore High Court. “I was sacked in 1994 for my trade union activities by the factory owner, who further threatened by saying the Punjab governor was his relative. I went to the Labour Appellate Court and was reinstated in 1999, but the owner didn’t want to keep me. I’ve been fighting the case for 13 years. My appeal is now pending with the LHC,” says Mirza Akbar Ali, an active trade unionist.
The ‘flawed’ IRO, as Khursheed Ahmad, the secretary-general of the Pakistan Workers’ Federation and Pakistan’s representative to the ILO calls it, has not gone down positively with the ILO, which has asked the government to amend it. But the amendment to the Factories Act of 1934 clearly signifies the government’s short shifting of workers’ concerns as well as disallowing deference for international covenants.
Using his executive authority a year after the IRO 2002 was adopted to crush the workers and to ban the trade unions, the Punjab chief minister suspended the labour laws and the Labour Protection Policy.
“We don’t have a labour inspection machinery because labour laws have remained suspended for three years under the chief minister’s executive order. Nobody can enter a factory to see how working conditions are and if workers are being exploited because the chief minister has suspended the labour laws,” asserts Khursheed Ahmad.
“We’ve complained to the government about bad working conditions and denial of health and other benefits to workers. But nobody is interested in solving workers’ problems,” says Pakistan’s representative to the ILO.
Sanjeela, a widow and mother of six, did a 14-hour daily stint at a garment factory at Kot Lakhpat. After working for a year, her employer told her that he had no more need for her at the factory, but ‘better options’ were available to her if she so desired. Availability of those ‘better options’ came in a sexually pliant package.
“I’m not the only woman who’s been through this. There are so many like me who’ve been sacked on one excuse or the other,” says a tearful Sanjeela. “We don’t exist for the government, for the employers. Why? Is there no one who can help us? I’m working at another garment factory now and make Rs3,000 a month. Do you think that’s enough for a woman and her six children?” she questions.
No, it is not enough. But Sanjeela has no power over her circumstances, and she might never be in a position to change her children’s government-IRO-Factories Act-orchestrated future.
For family’s sake
A father of five, Mirza Akbar Ali has to work twice as hard to keep his family going. Employed on the maintenance side of a motorcycle-manufacturing factory in Gulberg, Akbar hardly makes enough to feed a fairly large family.
“After working in the factory for 25 years, I only make Rs3,300 a month. That doesn’t even pay for my children’s food or their education. The government has raised the salary of government officials and we are left with another law to crush us,” he bellows.
Akbar’s daily rigmarole begins before the crack of dawn at 3:30am. On an empty stomach, he rushes off to Hospital Road outside Lohari Gate to collect his quota of newspapers from the Akhbar Market. By six he is free to go home for breakfast and prepare for his second job at the factory.
“I had to take up a second job as a hawker, otherwise my family and I would have gone hungry,” he says.
At the factory the management is instructed to keep a close watch on Akbar, who fell out of favour for his trade union activities. “I am the vice-president of the Capital Workers’ Union and a Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA), a registered trade union elected by secret ballot. The CBA has the responsibility of collective bargaining with the employer and employees on matters connected with employment, non-employment and terms of employment. But a CBA is not given any chance to bargain because the employer has all the power under the existing rules.”
By the time he comes home at nine at night his children are preparing to sleep. “The only time I get to spend with them is when they are about to sleep. I don’t have any choice, now do I? I don’t know for how long I will have this factory job because the employer has already laid off 150 out of the 500 workers without paying them any gratuity. The workers are filled with insecurity and disappointment, but they have to keep going for their families’ sake,” Mirza Akbar explains. —SBK