Workers’ bodies express solidarity with LQM, demand restoration of jobs

Trade unions, workers’ support organisations, and human rights and civil society activists from Sindh on Thursday expressed solidarity with a grand alliance of workers led by the Labour Quomi Movement (LQM) in Faisalabad against retrenchment and non-payment of wages to the workers.

At a joint meeting of the workers’ bodies at the Karachi office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the civil society and workers’ representatives condemned the Punjab government’s attitude towards the workers’ problems.

Karamat Ali, executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Habibuddin Junaidi, president of the Peoples Labour Bureau, Mahnaz Rahman, director of the Aurat Foundation, Farhat Perveen, executive director of the National Organisation of Working Communities, Saeed Baloch, general secretary of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Mirza Maqsood Ahmed of the Steel Mill, Bushra Arain of the Lady Health Workers Union, Jannat Hussain of the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, Usman Ahmed of the IUF, Jalil Shah of the Karachi Port Workers Union, Muqadar Zaman and Zeenia Shaukat were among those who demanded that the workers should be provided with their legitimate rights.

They said the workers staged a protest sit-in in front of a factory whose management had retrenched hundreds of workers. According to a report, over 2,100 workers of this group had lost their jobs, they said.

The labour leaders from Sindh demanded the Punjab government to accept the workers' demands and restore the jobs of all retrenched workers. The workers’ bodies expressed serious concerns over the submission of a report by the Faisalabad deputy commissioner to the CTD against the LQM terming it anti-state.