Still room to develop labour force: ILO

LAHORE: The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Country Director Pakistan Francesco d’Ovidio said that Pakistan has great human resource development to surprise the world.
In a farewell meeting with the stakeholders on the completion of his five year tenure in Pakistan at a local hotel on Monday, he said Pakistan has improved a lot in labour development, while a vast potential exists in further improvement. “As I see Pakistan has been improving the labour status by the year and during the last five years much improvement was witnessed”, he commented.
He was accompanied with Caroline Bates, ILO Consultant and other local representatives of ILO Country office Pakistan.
On a question about the ILO recommendation to the European Union on the continuation of GSP Plus status to Pakistan, he said EU experts have come to Pakistan several times to see the progress made in different compliances since the concessions were announced and implemented. He said the ILO told the EU Experts that Pakistan has made improvement on labour related compliances but room for further improvement always exist. “The ILO did not say that child labour, bounded labour and other labour related matters are resolved completely in Pakistan – but did tell them that Pakistan has improved – not a non complaint country anymore – rather implementing on them,” he said.
Francesco d’Ovidio said that previously, workers related compliance system did not exist in Pakistan which has now been established. The provincial governments are keeping the federal government updated on different compliances they had implemented.
Caroline Bates disclosed that the ILO has been jointly working with Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development on a National Action Plan (NAP) for labour force inspection project.
Other than this, the ILO Pakistan has also development a district level labour inspection model which will be implemented in the provinces with the support of the provincial governments, she said.
She said the ILO will also help Pakistan in formalising the informal economy, workers and labour force. She said Pakistan’s economy is largely undocumented and so is the labour force. So the documentation of the economy will enable the labour force of the country to get their rights too, she remarked.
She mentioned that the stakeholders of the labour sector of Pakistan had pointed out the un-documentation and recommended to take up the issue in the Geneva meeting held last year. “The Geneva meeting considered the recommendations and put it in their ILO related guidelines to Pakistan,” she said.
Various workers federations, unions and others appreciated the outgoing ILO Country Director Francesco d’Ovidio’s efforts to streamline the labour issues of Pakistan and bringing them in limelight. However, they criticized the non-implementation of the minimum wage law, as well as wrong fixation of minimum wage.
They said that very few industries and businesses were complying with the law of minimum wage in letter and spirit.
Chaudry Naseem Iqbal, Representative of Pakistan Workers Federation, also nominee on EOBI Board of Trustees, said that since the 18th Amendment the fate of EOBI has not be decided by the government.
He said that whenever the workers asked for resolving some issues related with the EOBI, the board said it was a provincial matter after devolution of powers, while provinces said otherwise. Iqbal said the government should decide the fate of EOBI; either to keep it a federal institution, which is the best solution for all workers or give it to the provinces.
He believed that transferring the EOBI to the provinces would be a great disaster and huge assets of the EOBI could be taken away by the corrupt people in provincial governments, especially in Sindh. This would deprive the workers of their rights.