ISLAMABAD: Labour Day is marked every year on May 1. Political statements are made, programmes on labour rights are aired on the electronic media, columns on labour rights are written in newspapers and magazines, the general public enjoys a holiday but the class for which this day is observed goes to work as usual because merely observing such days cannot feed children of workers. They have to work all their lives to sustain themselves and their families; the wages they get cannot bring them prosperity; provisions of the Constitution and human rights instruments have no meaning for them; they know they have to work for whatever they are paid and in whatever conditions they are provided with.
Instead of criticising the government for not fulfilling its constitutional obligations, or industrialists for exploiting the helplessness of the workers, or landlords for keeping the poor their slaves generation after the generation, let us make one solid resolution on this Labour Day that we will respect the labour class of our society. We, the common citizens of Pakistan, can make a huge positive change in the lives of the labour class by giving them the respect they deserve. This will definitely give them hope and reaffirm their faith in hard work. If they are deprived of their self respect despite all the hard work they put in all through their lives, they may resort to other means of meeting their basic needs that may be illegal and even violent.
Muhammad Zaheer Abbas
Published in The Express Tribune, May 1st, 2013.
