Continued exploitation of janitors and security guards

Imagine a country where its own national institutions collude and conspire to torture and enslave the very citizens for whose good they were established. Imagine a country in which 60 per cent workers are not paid even the minimum legal wage and 90 per cent are deprived of old-age benefits. Imagine a country where such extreme cruelty and exploitation is accepted as normal. Perhaps a few real-life examples may explain the making of this tragedy.

National Savings, a leading financial institution, boasts of a portfolio of over Rs3.4 trillion, 376 branches and 1,270 private security guards. As a government organisation and a principal employer, the National Savings is legally responsible to ensure that its contracted private security guards receive minimum legal wage, EOBI and social security. A recent survey of the security guards at the National Savings however revealed wages and working conditions that could put Guantanamo and Auschwitz to shame. There is not a single security guard who receives even half of the legal wage for a 12-hour shift. Over 60 per cent of them are neither registered with EOBI nor are they entitled to a weekly holiday. A day of absence is penalised by deduction of two-day salary.

Surveys of leading government hospitals in different cities reveal identical exploitation and cruelty. Even big names like the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Civil Hospital Karachi and Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar use contracted janitors and guards. They are neither paid legal wages for 12 hours daily shift nor registered with EOBI and Social Security. A yet more miserable treatment is meted out to thousands of sanitary workers working as daily wagers or through third party contractors in over 700 Municipal and Town Committees of Pakistan.

Often recruited through discriminatory ‘Non-Muslims Only’ advertisements, contract janitors are the most marginalised, low paid and discriminated citizens of Pakistan. They are paid much less than the legal minimum wage and invariably not registered with EOBI or Social Security. Can such extreme cruelty and unlawful treatment be possible without criminal collusion of the government organisations, Employees Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI) and the provincial Labour Departments?

The Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) has established yet higher benchmarks of plunder and cruelty. Taking a $100 million World Bank loan just to sweep the muck and manure on the roads, the SSWMB has sub-contracted this task to Chinese and Spanish companies who have, in turn, sub-contracted the same to Pakistani contractors who, in turn, contract Pakistani labour to sweep and lift the trash. After each middleman has extracted his pound of flesh, the poor janitor receives a paltry Rs15,000 with no EOBI or Social Security.

The pension system for government employees ensures a generous pension of Rs1 million for the Chief Justice and between one and three lakh rupees for senior government officials. In stark contrast, millions of contracted janitors and private security guards do not receive a single penny. It is reprehensible that a modern state keeps its citizens submerged in poverty by deliberately refusing to implement its own minimum wage and EOBI laws.

Numerous measures can put an end to this eternal cruelty and exploitation. The EOBI law ought to be revised to include every formal and informal worker above the age of 18. There ought to be jail terms for employers violating minimum wage or EOBI laws. At the time of retirement, workers must be given a choice between the accumulated lump-sum or the monthly pension. A worker must receive an SMS each month to confirm that EOBI has been deposited on his/her behalf. A nation-wide Helpline should allow any worker to complain about inadequate salary or EOBI. Finally, the existing dysfunctional EOBI and Labour Departments must be replaced by small NCOC-like, technology-based professional groups that are linked to NADRA and can monitor if legal wages and EOBI are regularly paid for every worker of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2022.

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