Labour issues: Engro Fertilizer contract workers protest in Daharki

Union demands better compensation and benefits, action not yet a strike.

SUKKUR: Hundreds of contract workers of Engro Fertilizer – a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Engro Corporation – have been protesting outside the company’s largest manufacturing unit in Daharki, demanding raises in compensation and benefits, which they claim that the management has been denying them.

The protests, which are not yet a strike action, have been organised by the Engro Fertilizer Contract Workers Union, which claims it submitted a charter of demands to the company’s management but had not yet received any response on the matter. The demands included a raise in salaries, bonuses and other benefits.

“We kept waiting for the company’s response on the charter of demands for six months. Only when the company did nothing, we started protesting,” Shahzado Panhyar, the general secretary of the labour union, told The Express Tribune.

As many as 800 of the 930 contract workers protest outside the factory gates every morning before going to work, which suggests that the protests have not disrupted the company’s manufacturing capacity. Engro Fertilizer recently completed and began production at its $1.1 billion single-train urea plant that is the largest of its kind in the world.

The matter of raising compensation, however, seems to be a little more complicated than may appear at first glance, however. According to Amanul Haq, a spokesperson for Engro Corporation, the company does not employ the workers directly but rather awards a contract to another firm that then hires and provides workers. Contracts with that labour supply firm are typically for one or two years.

It is unclear if the company would be able to renegotiate its contract with the labour supply company, given that the most recent contract became effective on January 1 of this year.

There seems to be some dispute over how much the workers at Engro’s plant in Daharki are paid. The labour union claims that they get paid between Rs7,500 and Rs10,000 per month, based on their work experience, while the company’s management claims that the number is between Rs9,000 and Rs15,000 per month. (Neither figure includes benefits.)

“There are many multinational companies operating in Ghotki and Engro Fertilizer pays the highest wages to its contract workers,” said the company’s spokesperson.

The key sticking point between the company’s management and the union appears to be the contract worker system. The union claims that contract workers are paid far less – and have far fewer benefits – than the regular employees of the company. They claim that some of their members have been on contract for over 20 years without having been regularised yet.

Panhyar said that the union’s protests had drawn the attention of the district administration. He claimed officials from the revenue and labour departments had met with the company’s management as well as the union, but had not been able to make a breakthrough.

Panhyar said his union’s protests would continue until their demands were met. Amanul Haq, the company spokesperson, said that the talks with the union were ongoing and expressed his hope that an agreement would be reached soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2011.