Date of publication: June 11, 2009
Source: Global Network Asia
Author: Aoun Sahi
» http://www.globalnetwork-asia.org/shownews.php?nno=22 [1]
"On May 25, I got home around 9 pm. I found several men inside my home and on the rooftop. They blindfolded me and took me away in a police van while ruthlessly torturing me, telling me how they\'ll \'teach\' me what it means to be a trade union leader,\" says Niaz Khan, General Secretary Carpet Workers Trade Union, Lahore. Khan\'s crime, according to him, was facilitating the workers of a furniture manufacturer establish a trade union last month. After being kidnapped from home, Khan says, he was taken to the CIA centre in Model Town, Lahore. Here, he tells he was tied up with a charpoy and tortured for days. \"Later they ordered me to keep standing throughout the night with a policeman standing there with a gun to make sure I don\'t sit. The next day was even more horrible. I was continuously beaten up,\" He adds: \"I asked them to kill me.\"
Khan claims he was jailed for a robbery that was registered in 2006. He was never nominated in this or any other case earlier, he says. \"The police asked me to disband the trade union at the furniture factory and leave the city or get ready to face worst consequences.\" He tells he was later released on bail by a local court on June 1. According to him, the owner of the furniture factory has closed down the factory \"just to punish the workers for demanding their rights and implementation of the law of the land.\"
While talking to TNS, Punjab Labour Minister Ashraf Khan Sohna confirms that cases registered against Niaz Khan were false. \"He was punished only for setting up trade union in the furniture factory because the owner is very influential,\" he says.
Niaz Khan is not the only worker who has been suffering the wrath of the owners just for using their very basic right of making a trade union. In fact, during the recent past, especially after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani\'s first speech in the parliament in which he promised empowering the workers, the situation has worsened especially in the private sector.
The federal governments has also repealed the anti-worker Industrial Relation Ordinance (IRO) 2002 promulgated by Pervez Musharraf government replacing it with a new one in November 2008 (IRO 2008) that allows the workers to form trade union and has made bilateral mechanism to resolve disputes among workers and employers.
Even though these labour laws have been amended in books, the situation on ground remains the same. On May 16, 2009, police in Faisalabad registered cases of robbery against more than 1300 labourers on the request of a factory owner because they were involved in activities of trade union. The factory management also sacked 15 leaders of the union.
According to Hameed Khan, a labour leader of Balochistan, a big pharmaceutical company in Quetta sacked 10 workers from their jobs in March, only to form a trade union of their choice within the factory. In another multinational company in Hub, two workers lost their jobs on the same charges last month. \"Situation is very bad for labourers in the province especially during the last one year or so. In many factories managements have divided the labour force on the basis of ethnicity,\" he tells TNS.
In Faisalabad, according to Aslam Miraj, general secretary Labour Qaumi Movement, more than 0.2 million workers have been sacked from their jobs during the last one year. \"After the government announced Rs 6000 minimum wage, many of the factory owners in Faisalabad have downsized but increased duty hours and consequently thousands of labourers lost their jobs. Since there are no trade unions in the majority of the factories in Faisalabad, no platform is available to labourer for collective bargaining\".
Miraj says following the government\'s decision to lift ban on trade unions in Faisalabad, only 16 trade unions have been registered, most of them in small factories. \"Workers of a leading textile mill formed a trade union a few months ago. The owners sacked the whole leadership of trade union and now nobody is ready to come forward.\"
According to an official of the labour department in Faisalabad, the owners are not ready to give rights to workers despite the directives from the government. \"There are at least 0.5 million workers in power loom sector alone but only 20,000 of them have the social security cards,\" he says.
The situation in Sindh is more or less similar with some exemptions. Labour Department has simplified the process of registration of trade unions and as a result maximum number of trade unions (more than 300) has been registered here during the last one year. The trade unions have also seen some big victories in this province and managed to stop the process of privatisation of Qadirpur Gas Field but situation in private sector has not changed so far.
\"Because around 90 percent of workers in the private sector in Karachi do not have appointment letters, they cannot join a trade union,\" Nasir Mansoor, deputy secretary National Trade Federation tells TNS. According to him more than 100 workers have been sacked in the last four months from different factories or private companies for joining trade unions. \"The workers are not allowed to make unions in some industrial areas like Export Processing Zone.\"
Farooq Tariq, spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan, admits that PPP governments have always been worker-friendly compared to other governments. \"But it was after the success of the lawyers\' movement when workers realised that peaceful protest can also bring positive results. This has brought a new wave of unionisation in the private sector. But, the owners are not used to it. They have made tremendous profits under eight years of Mushrraf and they are not ready to give space to labourers. Whenever new unions are formed, the owners intimidate with false charges, arrests, tortures and kidnappings.\"