Plight of labourers
It’s a holiday today across Pakistan – like in other parts of the world – with workplaces, offices and business centres shut. But for hundreds of thousands of daily-wage earners in the country, May Day is just another day as they continue to toil as usual. Labour Day events and seminars, marking the killing of Chicago workers striking for an eight-hour workday in police action in 1886, are customarily held at luxury hotels and other posh venues where speakers call for the rights of labourers and workers and resolve to go the extra mile as to the fulfilment of these rights. While such gatherings continue to be held for years and years, not a bit of improvement could have been made in the lives of the poor workers. Factory staff, construction workers, coal miners and the likes continue to work under pathetic, rather life-threatening, conditions and without proper remuneration and social security benefits.
And while the Punjab government has raised the minimum wage to Rs32,000 and the Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister has proposed to his government to raise it to Rs44,000 from the current Rs25,000, sadly they have failed to ensure an across-the board implementation on the increased wages. Labour unions too have been weakened over the years and lost the power and authority they once enjoyed in the management affairs. Moreover, the minimum wages set by the provinces do not apply to countless informal workers as well as domestic maids and servants who remain at the mercy of the employers with no rules and regulations catering to their plight, even if theoretically. There is need for the media and the civil society to come up with a concrete action plan and do all they can to pressure the government and the industry to shun their criminal negligence towards the workers and labourers in the country.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 1st, 2023.
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