The provincial government of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), since it came into power in Sindh in 2008, adopted a record number of laws to ensure the welfare and well-being of the labourers in the province.
Sindh Minister for Labour and Human Resources Saeed Ghani said this on Saturday, April 30, on the eve of Labour Day that is observed on May 1 across the world.
Ghani said the Sindh labour department was required to do more to ensure the welfare of labourers. He added that the process to adopt historical laws to ensure the welfare of the labourers in Sindh had been continuing since the time he had assumed the charge of the provincial labour department.
He said the PPP’s Sindh government had started the process of adopting such laws soon after the subject of labour was devolved from the Centre to the provinces in line with the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
He stated that both the top leadership and ordinary workers of the PPP had always raised their concern over labour issues and took part in the practical struggle to ensure that the labourers in the country were given all due rights.
He recalled that one such major decision of the PPP’s top leadership last year was to raise the minimum monthly salary of the labourers to Rs 25,000 in the province. Later, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif followed suit so that the same monthly salary was given to the labourers in the rest of the provinces and the Centre, he added.
The labour minister said work was in progress to implement the decision. He said that the prosperity of the labour class resulted in the upgrading of the industry, uplift of the economic situation and improvement in the overall situation of the country.
Ghani said that hard-working labourers and workers should be remembered on the occasion of Labour Day. He said that labourers should be given the rightful salary they truly deserved in accordance with their services.
He said that rightful payment of the salary to labourers went a long way to further the cause of poverty alleviation and ensure progress of the country.
He said Labour Day was observed all over the world to remember the sacrifices rendered by the workers of Chicago. He said that sacrifices rendered by the Chicago labourers ensured that workers all over the world worked in accordance with a daily timetable.
He said that before the sacrifices rendered by the Chicago labourers, the workers all over the world had been treated as slaves and subjected to excesses and oppression. Ghani said the rights of the labourers had been recognised all over the world due to the sacrifices rendered by the Chicago labourers.