Less than one per cent of the labour force in Pakistan has formed unions, which shows that our labour is not organised. The lack of trade unions and collective bargaining agents has been attributed to religion for some strange reason as people are confused about it.
Karamat Ali, labour activist and the executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler), said this during a webinar titled ‘Labour Rights in Islam: Modern Relevance in Pakistan?’ organised by the Ziauddin Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Ziauddin University.
The webinar was moderated by Syed Muaz Shah, the director of the Centre for Human Rights at the varsity.
“In 1979, Pakistan got caught up in the worst kind of dictatorship when many Muslim or Islamic institutions were asked to talk against the unionisation of labour. Like Pakistan, many other countries that also call themselves ‘Islamic’, mete out the worst treatment to their labour force,” Ali remarked.
“In the undivided India, in 1926, the Trade Union Act was made by a man by the name of Barrister Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He was not the Quaid-i-Azam then. He prepared that law that every person can make a union. His only compromise was to exempt the armed forces from unionisation. But then Ayub Khan’s martial law did away with that law,” Ali lamented.
He was of the view that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was not an Islamic convention but still, its guidelines were according to Islam. Fundamental rights should be for everyone, he said.
Speaking on the labour rights in Islam, Resident Director of the Aurat Foundation Mahnaz Rahman said she had found it interesting that all the requirements of the ILO had been found to be in conformity with Quranic verses and Hadith.
Sharing her views about the women in particular as regards to the labour laws, she said that as far as women were concerned, they had different biological needs that men did not have to face.
“Then in the Covid-19 times, there is also a dire need for social security as everyone is facing a crisis. Social security is a civil demand these days and the book also proves that Islam is also all for it. Thus there is no contradiction,” she said.
“Still, recently there is a lot of confusion as regards to religion. Women here are targeted using interpretations of Islam. But it should be understood that they suffer not due to religion, they suffer due to customs and culture. So religion is not the cause of their suffering as people like to portray,” Mahnaz remarked.
She said that as citizens, we needed to fight exploitation. “We should demand a welfare state. Religion also approves of a welfare state.”
She added that the Pakistani government was well aware of what was right and wrong, yet it did not do much. “When our government signs human rights treaties, it should also implement the laws it agrees to. But our government is not serious about implementing human rights and labour laws despite being a signatory to them so the people, including women, here are not benefiting from these laws,” she said.
“When a woman here wants to step out of the house and become part of the labour force, she needs an enabling environment. But instead, she has to face harassment. People discourage her. There is also a transport issue that is a problem for men but it gets worse for women. Besides, do also calculate and add those extra hours spent in commuting in the eight hours of work. It takes away from her relaxation or recreation time, which is also supposed to be eight hours each,” she remarked.
Mahnaz asked people to be sympathetic towards the labour force. She called for a proper transport system, an enabling environment and no harassment for women so that they felt safe and protected when they stepped out of their home.
“Why should women be looked at as something inferior because they take care of babies. But these very babies they are bringing up will be running this country, so women deserve higher status than men. They have a triple burden, so they should get more facilities than men,” she said.
Joining in from the Netherlands, Asghar Jameel, author of Islamic Labour Code, said the labour laws captured all spheres of life from birth to death. “There is maternity leave for women and other leaves that are an employee’s right,” he said.