Bonded labour: Brick kiln workers paid half of what they are entitled to

The minimum wage set by govt in Sep 2010 is Rs517.

LAHORE:

Only 3,836 out of a total of more than 10,000 brick kilns in the Punjab are registered, according to Brick Kiln Owners Association data, said the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) Pakistan secretary general Syeda Ghulam Fatima on Thursday.

She was speaking at a consultative meeting with journalists organised by the front. The 2.3 million workers don’t even have computerised national identity cards or social security cards, she said.

Fatima criticised brick kiln owners for denying workers minimum wage, saying that the minimum wage notified by the government in 2005 was set at Rs290 per thousand bricks but owners were currently paying Rs250. In September 2010, the government had set the minimum wage at Rs517 per thousand bricks. The workers are not provided other facilities that the labour laws entitle them to, she added. “Bricks kiln owners increased the price of bricks, from Rs5,000 to Rs8,500 per thousand bricks a few months, saying that the raise was a result of General Sales Tax imposed on them,” Fatima said, “the tax is yet to be enforced.”

She warned the Punjab government of a “province-wide protest” in case the problems of the workers are not addressed by March.

BLLF’s programme manager Mahar Safdar Ali called the government’s indifference towards kiln workers “criminal negligence”. He urged journalists to play their role in ensuring provision of rights.

Farrukh Baseer, a journalist, urged political parties to make the solution to problems faced by labourers a part of their manifestos. He also said that close coordination was needed between journalists and the BLLF to address issues related to bonded labour.

Imdad Qureshi said that the BLLF needed to engage with lawyers, politicians and government departments concerned regularly. Bilal Ghauri recommended that a committee comprising journalists and labour activists be formed that should visit bricks kilns at least once a month.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2012.