LAHORE, June 24: The International Workers Group of the International Labour Organization has made a special appeal to President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to end confrontation between the two countries and negotiate for the settlement of the basic dispute between their countries in the larger interest of their people.
The appeal was made through a resolution adopted at an extraordinary meeting of the group held at the ILO headquarters at Geneva recently. The group called upon the two heads of state to order a pullback of their troops from the borders to diffuse the tension between their countries.
The group called upon the international organizations and the world opinion leaders to use their influence to save the two neighbouring countries from the ravages of war and normalise their strained relations.
Khurshid Ahmad, an ILO governing body member, mentioned this at a press conference at the Bakhtiar Labour Hall here on Monday. Mr Ahmad, who has just returned after participating in the ILO Conference, was unanimously elected secretary of the Workers Group for Implementation of Conventions and chairman of the Standing Committee.
He said the ILO Governing Body had also established a solidarity fund to help the Palestinian people to fight poverty and unemploymemnt. He said he had represented Pakistani workers at the Special ILO Conference to condemn Israeli excesses against the Palestinians and express solidarity with their struggle against unemployment and poverty.
He said the ILO governing body had appealed to the Pakistan government to bring its labour laws in conformity with the ILO conventions ratified by it and restore trade union rights of the workers in banks, railways (open line), Pakistan International Airlines, Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and hospitals. It was for the seventh time since 1990, he said, that the ILO governing body had made such an appeal.
He said the governing body had also called upon the Pakistan government to take appropriate measures to ensure job security and safeguard the rights of the workers in the public sector and semi-government organizations proposed to be privatized and give them written assurances in this regard. He said the government had assured the ILO governing body that steps were being taken to bring the labour laws in conformity with the ILO conventions ratified by it.
He said the ILO governing body had asked the member countries to take steps to regulate the working conditions of the workers of the unorganized sectors like agriculture and small organizations for ensuring healthy working conditions, adequate wages, social security and collective bargaining rights for them. Special recommendations had been made for the purpose by the governing body.