Brick kiln industry remains out of labour & human resources department’s reach

Islamabad

Despite enactment of legislation on labour rights, frequent warnings of higher courts, international commitments and establishment of monitoring committees, the brick kiln industry remains out of the reach of Punjab Labour and Human Resources Department.

This is the crux of the Survey Report launched on Wednesday by Labour Quomi Movement and Pattan Development Organisation. The report assesses the compliance of brick kiln industry with the provisions of Pakistan's labour laws and country's international obligations under eight labour-related conventions of International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The objective of the study is to draw the government's attention to the much neglected brick kiln sector, which is a mainstay of the sprawling construction sector in the country. However, the brick kiln workers are largely deprived of their legal rights and entitlements and forced to work in unhealthy and unsafe environments. Prevalence of sexual harassment and child labour continue to go unnoticed despite constitutional guarantees and legal provisions.

The key findings of the report say that none of the 324 brick kilns surveyed issues an appointment letter to their workers. Only 5.5% of brick kilns displayed abstracts of Payment of Wage Act and its rules. As many as 96% brick kiln owners did not pay male and female workers the same wage for similar type of work. As many as 23.64% of brick kilns workers reported prevalence of sexual harassment at the workplace and only 2.42% of the brick kilns knew about any mechanism that existed at the workplace to deal with the complaints of sexual harassment.

The workers of 97.6% of the kilns reported that their employers did not provide a health and safety programme for workers and workers at almost 96% of kilns said their employers had not taken any measures to prevent accidents.

The survey report clearly shows that illegal practice of 'peshgi' continues with complete impunity as more than 40% of kilns don’t maintain records of loans and repayments of loans and workers at 75% of the brick kilns were not satisfied the way the records of loans of repayments were maintained. 

The survey also establishes the fact that bonded labour exists in kilns. As many as 81% workers reported they were not free to leave their job at will. Also two-thirds workers said they were not free to join or form their union. One of the main factors of this dismal state of affairs is absence of monitoring of kilns by labour department as 55% workers said that no officials ever visited their kiln. No wonder none of the brick kilns surveyed had provided their workers with Social Security Cards or properly or regularly depositing their share to the mandatory Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI).

The survey was conducted in eight districts of Punjab, including Faisalabad, Jhang, Toba Tek Singh, Nankana Sahib, Muzaffargarh, Multan, Vehari and Layyah. A total of 324 (23.4 per cent) brick kilns of a total of 1,382 registered kilns. The sample is adequate to provide findings that can be generalised to working conditions of brick kiln workers in Punjab in the context of national laws as well as the ILO conventions that Pakistan has committed to implementing as a prerequisite to the continuity of GSP.

The report recommended the government to empower and facilitate District Vigilance Committees so that those can visit brick kilns on regular basis and their monitoring and meeting minutes should be uploaded on the website of Labour Department on regular basis.

The report urged the Punjab government to launch awareness campaign for kilns workers about their rights and laws through radio, TV and newspapers. The report also demanded that the recent drive for the elimination of child labour from brick kilns must be expanded to other sectors too. The report was presented by Labour Quomi Movement President Latif Ansari, Pattan National Coordinator Sarwar Bari and Abdul Qadir of FES.