70,000 power looms closed in Faisalabad, Jhang

FAISALABAD: The owners of about 70,000 power looms on Thursday decided to shut down their units for an indefinite period.

The owners claimed that criminal elements in the protesting labourers’ ranks posed a security risk. They said the factories would not be opened until the district administration provided them with adequate security.

The decision was taken in a meeting presided over by Waheed Khaliq Ramy, the Faisalabad Council of Loom Owners chairman. Khaliq told the media that the factories could not operate in the current situation.

Representatives of Labour Qaumi Movement(LQM), which is leading the workers’ protest strike, and factory owners held meetings with the police and district administration but no settlement was reached. Both, Mian Abdul Qayyum, the LQM representative, and Waheed Khaliq Ramy, stuck to their positions. Qayyum demanded that the workers be provided with a 17 per cent pay raise in accordance with government directives. Khaliq, on the other hand, said that the wage issue could only be discussed after the criminals involved in sabotage are arrested and the factories provided adequate security.

Reacting to the factory owners’ decision, Farooq Tariq, the Labour Party Pakistan spokesperson, told The Express Tribune that there was no security threat. “They have invented the excuse to divert attention from the main issue,” he said. Tariq predicted that the factory owners would not be able to continue the closure for long. “They cannot continue this for very long. They have not invested in those units to keep them inactive. How long will they be able to sit idle?”  he added. Explaining the failure to reach a settlement in Faisalabad, Tariq said that the district administration and the police had recently been replaced with “officials, handpicked to suppress the workers’ movement”. He added, “Had the factory owners not enjoyed support of state officials, they would have agreed to the workers demands by now.”

Latif, a Labour Qaumi Movement representative who was leading the workers in Jhang, said that the shut down announcement would not change much. He denied that there were any criminal elements among the labourers. He alleged, “The so-called ‘miscreants’ who pose a security threat to the factories have been planted by the owners to divert attention from the issue of wages.” He said that assuming there was a security threat, it was for the state to deal with it. “These are two separate issues, but they are trying to blur the distinction,” he said.

“If there is a security risk, the city police has to deal with it. The factory owners should,meanwhile, fulfill their own responsibility, which is to abide by the law and give the workers a pay raise,” Latif said.

The regional police officer, Aftab Cheema, was not available for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2010.