Workers paid half of minimum wage in Hattar

HARIPUR, HATTAR: The minimum wage would be a princely sum for workers in Hattar, the country’s ninth largest industrial estate. Labourers toil for up to eight hours here, a mere 65 kilometres away from the federal capital, unsure of how much they will earn.

Despite government directives to pay workers a minimum of Rs7,000 per month, in Hattar there is no fixed wage rate. Workers say that while a man may earn Rs3,500 to Rs4,000 for his labour, a woman will earn only Rs2,500 to Rs3,500 for the same job.

But the low pay-scales are not universal. A contractor will make a considerable amount of money himself while paying workers very low wages. Employers also reportedly save a hefty amount of money for themselves by hiring employees on contractual basis. If the same workers were employed directly, employers have to give proper, officially mandated, wages and benefits.

Labourers realise this is unfair. A worker in Hattar Industrial Estate (HIE), Ahmed Khan said employers have become “kings of the state” and do not hesitate to remove any employee whenever they deem fit.

“There is not a single trade union,” he said. If anyone does try to unionise, they lose their job and are sidelined by employers throughout Hattar,” complained  a worker.

The Labour Office in the estate is a single-man operation. Officer in charge, Abdullah Khan, claimed all issues of labour rights are resolved according to the law. “Any worker is free to form a union,” he said. Some 14,000 men and 2,400 women work in HIE’s 170 operational units, according to the official. They create products in sectors such as food and beverage, textile, crockery, paper printing, chemical, cement, publishing, chemical, rubber and leather. The estate was established in 1985.

A volunteer at the Sahara Development Foundation, Tariq Mahmood, said that legally no adult worker should be allowed to work in a factory for more than 48 hours in a week under Section 34 of the Factory Act 1934. According to Section 47 of the act, the employee is entitled to overtime pay at the rate of twice his ordinary rate of pay.

Federal Ministry for Human Rights Regional Director in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sulaiman Shah, denied any knowledge of labour rights violations in Hattar.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2010.