Workers come out en masse across Sindh to mark Labour Day

Leaders used the day as a platform to reiterate demands to the government

KARACHI/SUKKUR/HYDERABAD: Scores of seminars, rallies and processions were held across the province to mark the International Labour Day on Sunday.

The largest rally in Karachi was held in Saddar, where the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) - a conglomerate of labour unions and federations - took out a rally from Empress Market to Karachi Press Club.

Participants spread over a length of almost a kilometre on one side of Sharae Liaquat and marched while holding Marxist-hallmark red flags and chanted against the ‘class-based’ system. “Workers of the world, unite, unite,” chanted the labourers.



“Today’s event is a slap on the faces of those who kept people divided in the name of religion, ethnicity or caste for their ulterior motives,” said NTUF president Rafiq Baloch. “The [mainstream] political parties have virtually removed advocacy of labour rights from their agendas. They only remember the working class when they need manpower for their gatherings.”



“It is a controlled democracy we are living in, to make it a real democracy workers have to wage a struggle themselves, otherwise opportunists and dictatorial forces will push the country more into the abyss of darkness,” he told participants.

NTUF deputy general secretary Nasir Mansoor commented that the ruling class has proved that it is the main enemy of workers. “In Pakistan, workers have been deprived of their due rights in both private and public sectors.”

It is tyranny that when workers raise their voice against this injustice they are labeled as terrorists, Mansoor said, referring to incidents in Faisalabad and Karachi where workers were fired from their jobs and later when they campaigned against their companies they were booked under the penal code and anti-terror laws.

The rally culminated at the press club where other labour leaders also spoke. A large number of women were also part of the rally. An elderly woman, Zahida Bibi, said she worked for her whole life and at this age she still has to. “No one thinks about us,” she said, complaining about not having any retirement plan or compensation from the textile company she worked at.



The heirs of Baldia factory fire victims also attended the rally to join hands with workers. “We don’t want others to suffer the same way as we have. Therefore, we are here to demand labour rights and workplace safety for others,” said Farhan, who lost his brother in the fire. “The government and political parties don’t care about us. They have made a joke out of us by using our case as a political card.”

Apart from these events, several others by the provincial government and various political parties were also held.

Rallies in Sukkur

Since the creation of Pakistan, many governments have claimed to provide rights to the oppressed and labourers but the fate of labourers remains unchanged, said former chief justice of Pakistan and chairperson of the Pakistan Justice Democratic Party, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Sunday.

Addressing a Labour Day rally in Mirpur Mathelo, he said the labourers’ struggle started in Chicago in 1886 and since then their struggle is continuing, with little being done to improve their living conditions.

“Labourers are an asset for any company or industrial unit and by reaping the benefit of their hard work, the owners and management are leading luxurious lives, which is highly condemnable,” he said.

Hyderabad activities

A flurry of token demonstrations staged by hundreds of labours’ unions, associations and NGOs were held to mark Labour Day in Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas divisions on Sunday. Demonstrators reiterated their demands to their employers and the government for better wages, allowances and working conditions.



The Railway Workers Union, which reached Hyderabad from Karachi in a train march, called for abolishing the policy of privatising trains. “All privatisation projects should be cancelled,” demanded the union’s president Manzoor Ahmed Razi.

The union also asked the federal government to provide hardship, shift, night and supervisory allowances, stop making deductions from house rent, reducing strength of the officer cadre by 50% and an inquiry into recent appointments.

Separately, the Home Based Women Workers Federation and Sindh Agricultural General Workers Union took out a joint rally, which culminated at Hyderabad press club. “The plight of workers engaged in the informal sector is even worse than those working in the formal and industrial sectors,” said the federation’s president Shakeela Khan.

She asserted that 80% of home-based workers are women and that while Pakistan is a signatory of the United Nation’s International Home Work Convention, the provincial governments are violating that agreement by denying labour status to home-based workers.

Awami Workers Party’s leader, Comrade Latif, lamented that the federal government is caving to the dictates of international financial institutions by privatising state-owned institutions.

Workers in Thatta, Sujawal, Nawabshah, Jamshoro, Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Umerkot and other districts also organised demonstrations to mark the day.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2016.