Workers demand living wages

LAHORE:The workers need to be paid fair wages for the work they do. A large number of workers do not get that. They demand wages in which they can eat, pay the bills and rent apart from educating their children.

Recently, two labour conferences were held in Lahore, one by All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF) at Punjabi Complex and the other was Women Workers Conference this weekend by Sangat Development Foundation in collaboration with Freidrich Ebert Stiftung at a local hotel. At both the events, workers were honoured, given shields and certificates in recognition of their services.

Their get-togethers show efforts are on for formation of harassment committees and they have succeeded in forming them at workplaces. There are success stories of ensuring separate toilets in factories/ industrial units, efforts are underway to have daycare centres at workspaces where women are employed. The government has the will and funds to cater to that. The workers have got funds for education and social security from the Workers Welfare Funds while still there is substantial backlog, but they are at a loss on how to have humane working hours and fair wages for a large number of them and no doubt they consider them the most important issues.

Labour work for 12 hours in factories and as domestic help and that is the norm while by law it should be eight hours. Minimum wage is Rs25,000 but private organisations have been taking two years to start giving minimum wage fixed by government and there are many who don’t even pay that.

In employments other than government organisations, forming unions remain a dream. Whenever workers have tried to form unions, they have been terminated. A large number of workers do not get minimum wages. If Labour department officials stand with labour leaders outside factories and record statement of every worker on how much wage they get and the number of hours they put in, there can be a data on payment of wages and the number of hours they work but the Labour department does not allow standing outside a factory and doing this exercise. Speaking on the Women Workers Conference, Lala Sultan from Balochistan said, “If workers die during performance of work, their families are paid Rs5 lakh in Lahore but only Rs2 lakh in Balochistan.”

Veteran labour leader Khurshid Ahmad asked women organisations to work in collaboration with trade unions. Justice (Retd) Nasira Iqbal stressed on the urgency of going for family planning and gaining economic independence. She called upon women to get work directly from Internet and remove the middleman. The first woman judge said, “Give women all the facilities you give to men at home. That would mean sharing household chores.”

Riffat Malik, Vice-President FPCCI that represents 24 women chambers and 165 trade organisations stressed on making policies where women can benefit most. She offered to help women in WWU and lamented there was very little economic activity but a lot of potential for that.

Prof Bushra Aitezaz said, “Laws are there. We do not use them.” She insisted on taking Haq Mehr seriously and put it in writing. She said, “At one time I was managing the women’s cricket team. We got them salaries and all the benefits. The women’s team captain married, had baby who travelled with her. So, know your rights and go for them,” she said.

Musarrat Qadeem, Chairperson FAFEN (Free and Fair Election Network) stressed on giving skills to women. “Women need money in their hands because only that gives agency,” she said.

Sangat is heading Women Workers Alliance (WWA) in 14 districts of Punjab and has started another project Women Workers Unity which SDF is targeting in 20 districts. WWU has been registered in Lahore to begin with. The conveners will enrol minimum 50 women in each district and maximum 500 women, all working in the private sector.

From the WWA platform the women approached Labour department, Provincial Ombudsperson and succeeded in getting constituted anti-harassment committees. They went to PESSI DG and EOBI for social security and were asked to furnish list of private organisations in the industrial sector that are not registered with EOBI.