(Education) Ordinance, 1972, Employees’ Cost of Living (Relief) Act, 1973 and Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Act, 1976. The last one was the most beneficial laws as currently 354,632 retired persons are drawing old-age pension from the institution constituted under the said law. Their pensions range from Rs3,600 to Rs6,400 per month.
Under the Provincial Employees Social Security Scheme providing medical treatment and benefits to industrial workers and their dependants, the two percent share in the monthly contribution paid by workers in 1972 was also passed on to the employers in addition to the four percent share already being paid. These percentages were linked to the wage ceiling under the ordinance, which was Rs500 at the time.
If there is no room to introduce more welfare laws or to come up with additional welfare measures for workers, the government can at least make a pledge on ‘May Day’ to consolidate and simplify the labour laws in the coming year for which there is urgent need.
Quite useful work has already been done by various commissions constituted by the respective governments for this purpose in the past, which only requires to be updated. For instance, a draft of the “Employment and Service Conditions Act, 2009” was circulated by the federal government amongst stakeholders for their views. Both employers and workers representatives had done the needful in a joint meeting convened by the then Sindh government’s labour minister but thereafter nothing was heard about the proposed legislation.
The draft law had combined 11 enactments which besides other points included some of the major laws such as the Minimum Wages Ordinance, Industrial & Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, Shops & Establishments Ordinance and the Employees’ Cost of Living (Relief) Act. The act provided one broad definition of ‘worker’ which is different in all the labour laws presently in force. Due to this complication in the prevailing laws, progressive employers have devised their own system of dividing an organisation into two categories — managerial and non-managerial staff.
These employers consider non-management employees as unionised and their terms and conditions of employment are determined through periodical bilaterally negotiated agreements with the representative union. There is never any confusion and issues on this account. If this kind of indifference and lack of interest towards labour laws by the government continues, employers will be left with no choice but to come up with their own rules covering every aspect of managing unionised employees.
Besides the above, policymakers should plan ahead for transition to paperless labour record-keeping instead of banking on the age-old hackneyed manual systems. On the other side of the divide, government functionaries who are responsible for the inspection of factories and establishments too operate in a miserable state. Their offices are flocked by disgruntled individuals seeking reinstatement in jobs through intervention of the labour department.
Both labour legislation and inspection require urgent attention from the government so that pragmatic changes are brought about in their form and structure.
The writer is an industrial relationsprofessional.