Labour rights in Naya Pakistan

Labour exploitation remains a major cause for the glaring disparities that we see around the world, including in our own country. Millions of people in Pakistan are working on measly wages and in unsafe conditions. Despite lip service by those in power, labour abuses remain rife across our urban and rural areas.

The dismal ground realities confronting our poor workforce are caused by a paucity of state regulatory capacity and the perpetuation of market-led policies which give precedent to profit maximisation by local and transnational business interests, instead of ensuring provision of decent work opportunities for the working classes.

A couple of years ago, Human Rights Watch criticised Pakistan for failing to enforce laws that could protect millions of its garment workers from serious abuses. Pakistan still has one of the highest child labour percentages, with about 11 million children either working in domestic households or in agriculture. Women workers in agriculture and other informal sectors are underpaid and blatantly mistreated. Debt bondage remains a common phenomenon amongst brick-kiln workers and sharecroppers. It should thus not be surprising that Pakistan was ranked eighth by the Global Slavery Index in 2018.

There is a plethora of indices measuring the international state of labour rights, and Pakistan does not occupy an enviable position on any of them. Such is the case with the Labour Rights Index (LRI) as well, which assesses countries based on the strength of their legal frameworks for regulating the labour market.

Compiled by the Netherlands-based Centre for Labour Research and Wage Indicator Foundation, the LRI ranks countries based on their ability to provide legal protections to their workers. While laws themselves do not represent ground realities, the absence of effective labour laws is itself an indication that labour rights are not being protected. The LRI assesses, for example, whether countries have formulated laws ensuring the right to unionise and to eliminate employment discrimination, to prevent child labour and forced labour. This index also considers whether countries have adequate laws to provide fair wages, ensure decent working hours, employment security, workplace safety and varied forms of social protection (such as old age, disability, survivor benefits or health insurance).

While Pakistan has introduced laws to ban bonded labour and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, it still received 51 points out of 100 by the LRI in 2020, placing it just 0.5 above the worst category of total lack of decent work. Pakistan’s ranking is below several neighbouring countries including India, Myanmar, Iran, and China.

Despite lofty claims of the current government to bring about meaningful change, Pakistan has no legislation to limit the maximum number of working hours per week or to mandate paid annual leave for at least three weeks. Recent increases to the minimum wage are still not enough given the rising inflation rate. Moreover, many informal sector workers, which comprise a significant proportion of our labour-force, are being paid much less than the official minimum wage.

The PTI government has established a Labour Expert Group under the Ehsaas programme which is trying to put in place social protection measures for the informal sector. It would be laudable if more informal workers could be included in schemes like ‘Hunarmand Naujawan’, ‘Apna Ghar’ and the ‘Insaaf Sehat Card’. Doing this effectively, however, will be a herculean task.

Worker conditions in the formal sector are far from ideal too. Pakistan needs to revamp labour inspections and systematically hold factories accountable for abusing labour rights. In the textile sector, for instance, not only domestic but international apparel brands must take more effective measures to help implement labour rights in factories producing clothing for them. Otherwise, the ‘trade-not-aid’ mantra may fill the pockets of factory owners, but it will do little to make life better for our poor workers.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2021.

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