Due vigilance: Govt urged to ensure workplace safety

Trade unions, AWP express solidarity with victims of factory collapse

LAHORE: Hundreds of trade union members held a rally in front of Lahore Press Club on Thursday to protest the death of more than 20 people in a four-storey factory collapse in the Sundar Industrial area.

The protesters demanded that the government hold a judicial inquiry into the tragedy. They called for the enforcement of International Labour Organisation Convention 155 regarding workers’ safety at workplace. They also opposed the proposed privatisation of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (FESCO).

Trade union leader Khurhid Ahmed, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan general secretary IA Rehman and lawyer Abid Hassan Minto were also present on the occasion.

“A large number of workers were children between 10 and 16 years of age,” said Khurshid Ahmed, general secretary of the All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union.  “The incident has exposed poor labour inspection,” said Chaudhry Nasim Iqbal, president of the Pakistan Workers’ Federation. “Many workers die every year due to lack of occupational health and safety standards,” said Nasir Mansoor, deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation.

Khalid Mehmood from the Labour Education Foundation said employing minors in the factory was a violation of the labour policy.

The Factories Act, 1934, prohibits the employment of children under 14 years in any factory. The Employment of Children Act, 1991, sets out stringent conditions for employing children under the age of 14.

Labour Department Public Relations Officer Mubashir Hussain said Rana Muhammad Jahangir, the labour inspector responsible for inspections in Sundar Industrial Estate, had been suspended from service.

He said when the factory was registered with the Labour Department, the number of employees reported was less than 150. He said the injured and the families of the deceased would be compensated by the Punjab Workers’ Welfare Board. A Labour Department official said no inspection had taken place at the factory since December 2013. The Awami Workers Party (AWP) expressed solidarity with the families of the deceased workers. “The tragic incident points to Labour Department’s failure in holding industrial units accountable for not adhering to occupational health and safety standards,” AWP president Abid Hassan Minto.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2015.