Firms fined for violating minimum wage law

Punjab yet to implement recommendation of Rs32,000

RAWALPINDI:

The labour department has said that it had started action against businesses in the Rawalpindi district that were not paying their employees the minimum wage of Rs25,000, with heavy fines imposed after completion of prosecution.

The runway inflation in the country has seen an upward revision in salaries of public sector employees as well as the country’s minimum wage, with it being set at Rs32,000 for all private sector industries and commercial institutions. The law has been implemented, to varying degrees, in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan, but not in Punjab as the recommendation of the Minimum Wages Board of Punjab has not been accepted yet.

Hence, the labour department is following the notification issued under the Punjab Minimum Wages Act 2019. Under it, industries, factories, shops, medical stores and other commercial establishments of the private sector are bound to pay their employees no less than Rs25,000 in terms of salary. Failure to do so would lead to action as prescribed under the law.

Following the crackdown in the light of the notification, the labour department said that it had fined between 900 to 1,000 business owners in the Rawalpindi district every month.

The disparity in the minimum wage in Punjab and the rest of the provinces means that the minimum wage-earners in Punjab, already on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, were facing greater hardships as the country experiences record inflation.

Samiullah Khan, who is Punjab Labour Welfare Department director in Rawalpindi, said that more than 18,000 enterprises were registered in the district at present. He revealed that the law to pay a minimum wage of Rs25,000 has been in place in since July 1, 2022.

Under the law, the business owner has to pay that amount for eight hours of work across 26 days in a month. If the duty hours were extended, then overtime would be applicable.

He acknowledged that a large number of businesses, including big and small, were violating this law. A large number of these violators do not pay overtime to their employees, he said.

He said a special team had been constituted to identify private sector entities in the district that were not registered. He suggested that this avoidance was driven by several motives including violating of the minimum wage law.

Khan added that his department would implement the Rs32,000 order as soon as it was notified by the Punjab government.

In March this year, Punjab’s caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued a statement on account of International Worker’s Day. In it he claimed that the minimum wage had been increased to Rs32,000.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2023.