Labour leaders demand fixing minimum wage at Rs30,000

Trade unions’ leaders and labour rights activists on Tuesday urged the country’s provincial governments to announce the minimum wage at Rs30,000, saying that this year no minimum wage for unskilled workers was announced in the budget for the upcoming financial year.

They also demanded that the federal government provide three months’ salaries to the private sector’s workers as Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had recently announced the same for the federal government’s employees.

Addressing a joint news conference, National Labour Council Secretary Karamat Ali demanded fixing the minimum wage at Rs30,000 to Rs31,000 a month, considering the increasing living costs and the inflation rate. Last July the federal and provincial governments had fixed the minimum wage at Rs15,000 a month.

Ali said that in 1969 the minimum wage for unskilled workers was fixed at Rs140 a month, but experts were of the opinion that it was equal to 50 per cent of the actual wage. “We demand that the minimum wage be fixed on scientific grounds and be determined according to the rate of inflation and other factors of living a decent life by a worker’s family,” he said, adding that every year the minimum wage should be fixed according to that formula of indexation.

Ali said the provincial minimum wage boards should announce the wage before Eidul Fitr to provide relief to the poor workers, adding that the minimum wage is usually fixed for industrial workers but not for other types of workers, such as agricultural and home-based workers.

He said that like the minimum wage, there should also be a limit on the maximum wage as already practised in many developed countries, adding that the maximum wage is announced to keep the gap between the haves and the have-nots at a limited level.

He pointed out that the federal cabinet has recently increased the salary of Pakistan’s president from Rs133,333 to Rs846,550, and a bill in this regard has already been presented in the National Assembly. This increase is more than double, he said.

Ali said that after the passage of the 18th amendment, labour subject has been devolved to the provinces, but the federal government still intervenes in labour affairs. For example, he said, the PM recently announced the names of the people who will be part of the official delegation that will participate in the annual meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), without consulting with the provinces.

Every year members of a certain labour group are sent to the ILO by the federal government, depriving the provincial labour leadership of this opportunity, he added. Senior labour leader Habibuddin Junaidi said the announcement of three months’ basic pay for employees of the federal government is actually a political decision ahead of the general elections. “This is an attempt to influence the election results.”

Labour leader Liaqat Sahi said the Supreme Court has declared the third-party contract employment system against the Constitution, but the present government has not taken any serious measure to end this system in all companies and government departments.