Know your rights: Rights of cottage industry workers

LAHORE:

Labourers and workers in the cottage industry of Pakistan are a part of the informal sector of the country. Unfortunately, they are not recognised as ‘workers’ by the Constitution of Pakistan and no labour-related laws in the country apply to them.

According to Pakistan Labour Force Survey of 2007-2008, the informal sector accounts for more than 73% of the total employment. The informal sector of Pakistan includes the cottage industry, home-based workers and other workers and labourers.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Labour Education Foundation Director Khalid Mehmood said labourers working in the cottage industry should be given the right to association as Article 17 provides for a fundamental right to exercise freedom of association and the right to form unions.

Article 37(e) provides for ensuring just and humane conditions of work, that children and women are not employed in vocations unsuited to their age or sex, and for maternity benefits for women in employment.

The fundamental right of the workers working in the cottage industry is to be recognised as ‘workers’ first because no labour law in the country recognises them as such.

Freedom of association

The right to association is guaranteed under Article 17 of the Constitution. According to it, every citizen has the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, public order or morality.

Clause 3 of the Punjab Industrial Relations Act 2010 states that workers of an establishment may form and subject to the rules of the organisation, may join associations of their own choice without previous authorisation; it states that a worker shall not be entitled to be a member of more than one trade union at any time and on joining another trade union, his earlier membership of the other trade union shall stand cancelled; employers may establish and, subject to the rules of the organisation, may join associations of their own choice without previous authorisation; every trade union and employers association shall frame its own constitution and rules to elect its representatives in full freedom to organise its administration and activities and to formulate its programmes; and workers’ or employers’ organisations may establish and join federations and confederations, and any such organisation, federation or confederation may affiliate with international organisations and confederations of workers’ or employers’ organisations.

Minimum wages

The government must ensure those working in the cottage industry fall under the minimum wage set by the government at Rs12,000 per month.

Unfair labour practices of employer

Clause 18 of the Punjab Industrial Relations Act 2010 states that no workman or other person or trade union of workmen shall:

(a)   Persuade a workman to join or refrain from joining a trade union during working hours

(b)   Intimidate any person to become, or refrain from becoming, or to continue to be, or to cease to be a member or office-bearer of a trade union

(c)    Induce any person to refrain from becoming, or cease to be a member or office-bearer of a trade union, by intimidating or conferring or offering to confer any advantage on, or by procuring or offering to procure any advantage for such person or any other person

(d)   Compel or attempt to compel the employer to accept any demand by using intimidation, coercion, pressure, threat, confinement to, or ouster from a place, dispossession, assault, physical injury, disconnection of telephone, water or power facilities or such other methods

(e)   Commence, continue, instigate or incite others to take part in, or expend or supply money or otherwise act in furtherance or support of, an illegal strike or a go-slow

In clause (e), the expression ‘go-slow’ means an organised, deliberate and purposeful slowing down of normal output, or the deterioration of the normal quality of work by a body of workmen acting in a concerted manner, but does not include the slowing down of normal output, or the deterioration of the normal quality of work which is due to mechanical defect, breakdown of machinery, failure or defect in power supply or in the supply of normal materials and spare parts of machinery.

(2) It shall be unfair practice for a trade union to interfere with a ballot held under section 24 by the exercise of undue influence, intimidation, impersonation or bribery through its executive or through any person acting on its behalf. The law dealing with unfair labour practice must also apply to the cottage industry labourers.

EOBI and social security

The government should take steps to ensure and amend laws to ensure that the workers working in the cottage industry also get registered with Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) and provincial Employees Social Security Institutions (ESSI) and make a contribution to these institutions, respectively, of five percent and six percent of the official minimum wage for each of the registered worker.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2014.