Denial and Discrimination Labour Rights in Pakistan 2007 Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research

Denial and Discrimination
Labour Rights in Pakistan
2007
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research
Author
Zeenat Hisam
Special Contributions
Bushara Khanum
Maqsood Mirza
Mohammad Sadaqat
Muqqadam Khan
Zubeida Mustafa
Zulfiqar Shah
Cover Design and Layout
K.B. Abro
First published May 2007
ISBN ….
Published by
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research
PILER Centre
ST-001, Sector X, Sub-Sector V
Gulshan-e-Maymar, Karachi-75340, Pakistan
Tel: (92-21) 6351145-7
Fax: (92-21) 6350354
Email: piler@cyber.net.pk
2 Labour Rights in Pakistan
The Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), engaged with labour
issues for the last 25 years, has undertaken to review the changing trends and the factors
impacting adversely on the workers' lives and the working conditions, and document the
workers' struggles to counteract these forces. This report attempts to put together a picture
of the current status of labour in the country.
The report aims to facilitate the role of the civil society as a watchdog of human rights related to
work and workplace. A constant vigil and monitoring of labour laws violations can serve as a useful
tool in the struggle to ensure rights enshrined in the Constitution, national legislation and international
covenants and standards.
The report covers the period up to December 2006 and is based on two categories of sources. Firstly,
the secondary sources which range from print media and the internet, to the latest official reports
and documents, research studies and articles available on the subject. Secondly, and of particular
significance, is the PILER's direct engagement and interaction with workers and labour organizations
in the informal sector, trade unions, civil society groups and representatives of state labour institutions.
The assessment of conditions of work and employment put together in this report is based on the
work undertaken by the PILER programme and field staff members in recent years. Besides small
surveys, rapid assessments and sector profiles, the national conventions of workers in the textile,
brick kilns, transport, construction and light engineering sectors organized by PILER in 2005 have
contributed richly to the report. Information sharing by workers' representatives, trade unionists,
social activists during seminars, training workshops and consultative meetings organized by PILER
and the help sought by the workers through the Labour Rights Helpline services have also provided
insights in to the assessment.
The report, first of its kind, acknowledges being deficient in many aspects in view of the constraints
in documentation and systematic data collection prevalent at all levels of society. The constraints
include non-cooperation of state governance structures to share data related to labour, lack of dispassionate
critique of labour legislation, and the lack of a unified institutional mechanism at nongovernmental
level to monitor labour matters.
PILER looks forward to critical review, comments and suggestions for improvement in future reporting.
Karamat Ali
Executive Director
April 2007
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Preface
T
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
1. Introduction
Enabling Rights
Overview of Economy
Recent Legislative Changes
Labour Struggles
Core Labour Rights
List of ILO Conventions Ratified by Pakistan
2. Labour Policy and Legislation
Labour Protection Policy 2005 & Labour Inspection Policy 2006
Consolidation of Labour Laws
Draft Labour Legislations
Draft Employment and Services Conditions Bill 2006
Draft Punjab Pension Fund Act 2006
Draft Federal Court Bill 2005
Labour Legislation: Current Status
Finance Act 2006
Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability Act 2006
Voluntary Pension System Rules 2005
IRO 2002
Campaign against IRO 2002
Constitution of Pakistan
Labour Inspection Policy and the ILO Convention No.81
3. Status of Labour
Labour Force Participation
Sector Growth and Employment
Labour in the Informal Sector
Women in Labour Force
Labour in Agriculture
Sub-sectors: Livestock & Fisheries
Labour Force Statistics
Conditions of Work and Employment: 2006
Agriculture
Non-Agricultural Sectors
Employment Contract
Contract Work
Minimum Wages
Delayed Payment of Wages
Working Time, Overtime, Holidays and Leaves
Maternity Benefits, Child Support at Workplace, Separate Toilet Facility
Occupational Health and Safety
Social Protection
Unionisation and Collective Bargaining
3 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Contents
Human Development Indicators
De-linking of Output and Employment Growth
ILO Conventions on Agriculture
Contract Employees in the Public Sector
Urban Dairy Farmers' Demand for Land Ownership
Labour Laws Violations in Hattar Industrial Estate
OHS: TB among Powerloom Workers
Workers in the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate
4. Women in Labour Force
Gender Inequality Measures
Gender, Constitutional Framework and Labour Legislation
International Labour Conventions
Labour Force Participation and Problems in Enumeration
Composition and Socio-Economic Indicators of Female Labour Force
Unionization
Sexual Harassment at Workplace
Home-Based Workers
Women in Textile and Garment Sectors
Women in Domestic Service
Women Workers' Mobilisation
Women Factory Workers in Multan
Constitution and Gender Rights
Legislation Concerning Women Workers
Determinants of Occupational Segregation
Discrimination in Remuneration
Domestic Workers Around the World
Organising India's Domestic Workers
Sexual Harassment of Domestic Workers
ILO Conventions and Recommendations on Domestic Work
5. Anti-Labour Actions and Workers' Resistance
Agricultural Workers
Military Farms Workers' Movement for Land Ownership
Fisheries Sector Workers' Struggle for Control over Resources
Formal Sector Workers
Against Privatisation
Pakistan Steel Mills
PTCL
Against Labour Laws Violations
Sugar Mills Workers
4 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Informal Sector
Powerloom Workers' Movement for Decent Work
Brick Kiln Workers' Struggle against Violation of Human & Labour Rights
Pearl Continental Hotel Workers' Struggle
Glass Bangle Factories Workers' Campaign for Decent Work
6. Marginalised: Bonded Labour, Child Labour, Migrant Labour
Migrant Workers Residing in Pakistan
Afghan Refugees
The Aliens: Bengalis and other Nationalities
Bonded Labour
Interventions
Bonded Labour in Agriculture
Bonded Labour in Brick Kilns
Child Labour
Afghan Waste-Picker
Agriculture: Key Elements of the Bonded Labour Relationship
Bonded Labour in Brick Kiln
Child Labour in Agriculture
Child Labour and Segmented Labour Market
7. Labour Institutions
Trade Unions
Overview of Trade Unionism
Workers' Organisations
State Institutions
State Labour Welfare Institutions
Employee Social Security Institution
Workers' Welfare Fund
Employees Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI):
State Tripartite Institutional Arrangements
Labour Judiciary
Workers Employers Bilateral Council of Pakistan (WEBCOP)
Transport Workers' Organisations
5 Labour Rights in Pakistan
6 Labour Rights in Pakistan
7 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Introduction
ong working hours, low wages, poor
health and safety conditions, rising contractual
work and increasing curbs on
freedom of association and collective
bargaining characterize the transforming
nature of work relations in Pakistan in the
present decade. Scrapping of protective clauses
and introduction of restrictive labour legislation—
over-riding constitutional framework—is on
the rise. Violations of basic labour rights are on
the increase across the board. The state has
withdrawn itself from monitoring the implementation
of labour laws through suspension of
labour inspection. The capacity of labour judiciary
to provide justice and oversight is eroding.
Labour organizations, with legally empowered
collective bargaining agency, stands shrunk in
power and size.
Enabling Rights
Right to work and earn a decent living under conditions
of freedom and dignity is recognized as
one of the fundamental human rights. According
to the Constitution of Pakistan, 'the state shall
make provision for securing just and humane
conditions of work…' (Article 37c), and '…shall
ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation
and the gradual fulfillment of the fundamental
principle, from each according to his
ability, to each according to his work' (Article 3).
Pakistan is a signatory to both, the UN Universal
Declaration of Human Rights 1948 that recognizes
the right to work, to freely choose employment
and to have just and favourable working
conditions, and the 1998 ILO Declaration on
Fundamental Principals and Rights at Work that
pledges to 'promote opportunities for women
and men to obtain decent and productive work,
in conditions of freedom, equity, security and
human dignity'. Pakistan has ratified all the
eight core Conventions that codify the four most
basic human rights related to the world of workthe
right to organize and engage in collective
bargaining, the right to equality at work, the abolition
of child labour and the abolition of forced
labour.
The ILO defines decent work as ‘…productive
work in which rights are protected, which generates
an adequate income, with adequate social
protection’1 . The notion of decent work includes
economic dimensions as well as social aspects,
particularly participation and dialogue, and is
inextricably linked to social justice and democracy.
The types of instrumental rights that promote
social justice and democracy, and lead to equitable
development include ‘…political freedoms,
economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency
guarantees and protective security.’2
The existence and effective functioning of institutions,
including that of the state and the democratic
system, play a crucial role in advancing
instrumental rights, including the right to earn a
decent remuneration through gainful employment
or self-employment.
Sadly, ratification of international standards and
the provision of constitutional framework have
not secured labour rights to the vast majority of
workers in Pakistan. Institutional decay, retrogressive
labour legislation and lack of democratic
culture are among the many reasons the
workers at large are denied their rights and confronted
with increasingly harsh conditions.
Economy
The fiscal and economic liberalization policies
pursued by the government since 1988—with
the beginning of Structural Adjustment
Programmes—have brought about drastic
changes in the workplace and in work relations.
Formulated by the IMF, World Bank and the
Asian Development Bank, at the behest of international
capital, the process is continuously
weakening the ability of workers to negotiate
L
advancement of labour rights through enhanced
employment terms and conditions protected by
better legislation and implementation. The
expansion of informal economy, weakening of
trade unions and the rising trend for anti-labour
and pro-investor national labour legislation have
also been a response to globalization and the
resultant economic, commercial, technological,
and political changes that are taking place
nationally and globally.
In the 1990s, the pace of downward slide in the
status of labour in the country was aggravated
on several accounts including declining agriculture
sector (in terms of both labour and output),
decrease in wages in real terms, fall in public
sector employment, cut in public (development)
expenditure and reduction of subsidies. Poverty
increased from 26.1 percent in 1990-91 to 32.1
per cent in 2000-013.
In 2002, General Pervaiz Musharraf replaced
the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 1969
with the IRO 2002. The additional curbs
imposed by IRO 2002 on the right to unionize
and the right to collective bargaining were compounded
by neo-liberal policies pursued relentlessly
by the government. Without consent of the
Council of Common Interests, the Privatisation
Commission took ‘…giant strides on the strategic
sale of mega projects…’4 backed by massive
state repression to stifle workers’ resistance.
Fifty-eight privatization transactions for assets
of the federation, including those of public utilities
(i.e. KESC, PTCL) were materialized during
December 1999 to August 20065. The impact
of privatization on workers was adverse: thousands
were made jobless with or without reasonable
compensation, for others, employment
conditions changed for worse as in many
instances the new managements re-hired the
staff on insecure contracts.
Though according to official statistics, the population
living below poverty line shrank from 32.1
per cent in 2000-01 to 25.4 in 2004-056, other
economic indicators did not support the claim
and the ground realities for workers remained as
harsh as ever. Driven by food and fuel price
hikes, the inflation was recorded at 8.9 by
December 2006 adversely impacting the low
and middle-income groups7. Slight decline in
unemployment rate—from 7.7 per cent in 2003-
04 to 6.2 in 2005-06—was noted officially. Of
the 50.05 million active labour force, 3.11 million
people were unemployed8.
Recent Legislative Changes
The year 2006 witnessed further erosion of
labour rights in Pakistan with the induction of
Finance Bill 2006. In violation of Article 73 of
the Constitution, the Finance Bill included
amendments in several labour laws and in the
penal code. The amendments in the Factories
Act 1934, Standing Orders Ordinance 1968,
Shops and Establishment Ordinance, 1969,
West Pakistan Industrial & Commercial
Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance 1968
and the Employees Old Age Benefits Institution
Act 1976, have brought about fundamental
changes in the labour laws with deleterious consequences
on the rights of the workers. The
amendments relate to increase in working hours
and over time; have allowed the employers to
make women work till 10pm in two shifts;
added 'contract worker' to the definition of
'worker' without entitlement of overtime, and
curtailed the number of establishments for registration
with EOBI only to those employing more
than 20 workers.
The number of unprotected workers continued
to rise during 2006; one reason being that
Core Labour Rights
Out of 185 Conventions of the ILO Labour Code,
evolved over a period of 86 years, the ILO has
picked out 8 Conventions and grouped them
under four most basic human rights as follow:
The right to organize and engage in collective
bargaining
Convention 87: Freedom of Association and
Protection of the Right to Organize (1948);
Convention 98: Right to Organize and
Collective Bargaining (1949);
The right to equality at work
Convention 100: Equal Remuneration
Convention (1951); Convention 111:
Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)
Convention (1958);
The abolition of child labour
Convention 138: Minimum Age Convention
(1973); Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of
Child Labour (1999);
The abolition of forced labour
Convention 29: Forced Labour Convention
(1930); Convention 105 on the Abolition of
Forced Labour (1957).
8 Labour Rights in Pakistan
9 Labour Rights in Pakistan
List of ILO Conventions Ratified by Pakistan
Pakistan had ratified 35 ILO Conventions, including eight core labour rights Conventions by July 2006.
Convention Ratification date Status
C1 Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 14:07:1921 ratified
C4 Night Work (Women) Convention, 1919 14:07:1921 ratified
C6 Night Work of Young Persons (Industry) Convention, 1919 14:07:1921 ratified
C11 Right of Association (Agriculture) Convention, 1921 11:05:1923 ratified
C14 Weekly Rest (Industry) Convention, 1921 11:05:1923 ratified
C15 Minimum Age (Trimmers and Stokers) Convention, 1921 20:11:1922 denounced
on 06:07:2006
C16 Medical Examination of Young Persons (Sea) Convention, 1921 20:11:1922 ratified
C18 Workmen's Compensation (Occupational Diseases) Convention, 1925 30:09:1927 ratified
C19 Equality of Treatment (Accident Compensation) Convention, 1925 30:09:1927 ratified
C21 Inspection of Emigrants Convention, 1926 14:01:1928 ratified
C22 Seamen's Articles of Agreement Convention, 1926 31:10:1932 ratified
C27 Marking of Weight (Packages Transported by Vessels) Convention, 1929 07:09:1931 ratified
C29 Forced Labour Convention, 1930 23:12:1957 ratified
C32 Protection against Accidents (Dockers) Convention (Revised), 1932 10:02:1947 ratified
C41 Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1934 22:11:1935 denounced on
14:02:1951
C45 Underground Work (Women) Convention, 1935 25:03:1938 ratified
C59 Minimum Age (Industry) Convention (Revised), 1937 26:05:1955 ratified
C80 Final Articles Revision Convention, 1946 25:03:1948 ratified
C81 Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 10:10:1953 ratified
C87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise
Convention, 1948 14:02:1951 ratified
C89 Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1948 14:02:1951 ratified
C90 Night Work of Young Persons (Industry) Convention (Revised), 1948 14:02:1951 ratified
C96 Fee-Charging Employment Agencies Convention (Revised), 1949 26:05:1952 ratified
C98 Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 26:05:1952 ratified
C100 Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 11:10:2001 ratified
C105 Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 15:02:1960 ratified
C106 Weekly Rest (Commerce and Offices) Convention, 1957 15:02:1960 ratified
C107 Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 15:02:1960 ratified
C111 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 24:01:1961 ratified
C116 Final Articles Revision Convention, 1961 17:11:1967 ratified
C118 Equality of Treatment (Social Security) Convention, 1962 27:03:1969 ratified
C138 Minimum Age Convention, 1973 06:07:2006 ratified
C144 Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards)
Convention, 1976 25:10:1994 ratified
C159 Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons)
Convention, 1983 25:10:1994 ratified
C182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 11:10:2001 ratified
employment rose both through more jobs in
informal sectors, as well increasing informality
of employment in the formal sector. Agricultural
workers (43.1% of total employed workforce9),
informal sector workers (73 per cent of the workforce10),
employees of 16 major establishments
and the workers of export processing zones
remained outside the ambit of labour laws for
labour protection and the Industrial Relations
Ordinance 2002. The number of workers
deprived of social protection would further rise
in coming years as a result of the changes in
EOBI Act that has curtailed its applicability in the
formal sector and rendered smaller establishments
ineligible to register.
Official figures indicated declining percentage of
workers categorized as 'employees' and deteriorating
working conditions—41.82 percent
worked for 48 hours or more per week11. While
the formal sector workers—27 percent of the
employed workforce—grappled with growing job
and income insecurity, increasing de-unionization
and longer working hours, 73 percent of the
informal workforce faced poor working conditions,
low wages, lack of social protection and
lack of representational security in the unorganized,
voiceless, informal sector.
Labour Struggles
The resistance and campaigns for labour rights
by the informal sector workers continued in the
year 2006. Years-long and concerted struggles
of brick kiln and power looms workers in the
informal economy yielded some gains in 2005-
06 for the most vulnerable segments of workers.
Thousands of brick kiln and power loom workers
staged protest rallies, went on strike and suffered
excesses by the law enforcing agencies.
Many leaders and workers were arrested and
detained in Faisalabad, Multan, Toba Tek Singh
and Lahore. The strategic campaign of brick kiln
workers for better wages and social security benefits,
spearheaded by the All Pakistan Bhatta
Mazdoor Union, resulted in government notification
towards improved wages and the Supreme
Court orders for better implementation of relevant
laws for the protection of brick-kiln workers.
Power loom workers' agitation against nonimplementation
of the tri-partite contract for
improved wages signed in 2005 led to improved
wages in some looms and increased registration
of workers for social security benefits.
The Okara Military Farms’ workers’ determined
struggle finally brought the army to negotiation
with the movement's representatives. Aside a
couple of incidences of arrest of farmers on
allegedly fake charges, no excesses were committed
by the law-enforcing agencies in the year
2006. Beginning from the last quarter of the year
2005, several meetings were held between the
officials of the military, Rangers Punjab, Punjab
Board of Revenue and the representatives of
Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (AMP). The officials
assured the AMP that the government is finalizing
10 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Constitutional Rights
? Article 11 of the Constitution prohibits all
forms of slavery, forced labour and child
labour;
? Article 17 provides for a fundamental right to
exercise the freedom of association and the
right to form unions;
? Article 18 proscribes the right of its citizens
to enter upon any lawful profession or
occupation and to conduct any lawful trade
or business;
? Article 25 lays down the right to equality
before the law and prohibition of
discrimination on the grounds of sex alone;
? Article 37(e) makes provision for securing
just and humane conditions of work,
ensuring that children and women are not
employed in vocations unsuited to their age
or sex, and for maternity benefits for women
in employment.
arrangements to grant land rights to the tenants
as promised by Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf. By the
end of 2006, the government functionaries had
indicated that the General would make the
announcement himself in early 2007 to secure
vote for himself in the coming election from the
vast constituency of occupancy tenants12.
The struggle of the inland and marine fisheries
workers—united under Pakistan Fisherfolk
Forum (PFF)—for abolition of the contract system
in the inland water bodies and ban on deepsea
trawlers continued in 2006. In October
2006, the Fisherfolk Forum initiated a campaign
against the sale of twin islands near Port Qasim,
Karachi, for commercial development to a
Dubai-based company.
After the failure of the country-wide struggle
waged by the 65,000 strong workforce of the
country's most profitable company, Pakistan
Telecommunications Company Limited, against
privatization in 2005, no significant struggle by
the workers in the formal, unionized sector took
place in 2006 with the exception of the resistance
of teachers against the ban on teachers'
unions in Sindh. Sporadic and atomized struggles
of a number of formal sector units against
retrenchment, including the PTCL, indicated further
weakening of the trade unions. ?
11 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Underemployment
Prevalence of low wages and, by the same token,
low savings doesn't lend an average citizen to
countenance asset-based stream of income to
provide for rainy days. Similarly, paucity of social
security and unemployment insurance schemes
makes remaining out of work an un-workable
proposition even after retirement. Thus bulk of
the working hands tends tends to do all the time
some sort of economic activity to make the both
ends meet even party. Consequently, vast proportion
of people worked less than 35 hours a
week, and gluded to the quest for alternative or
additional work, may be considered at best as
"employed at fringe" or underemployed.
—Pakistan Labour force Survey 2005-06
12 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Labour legislation in Pakistan is based
on legal framework inherited by the
British. Most of the laws enacted by the
British during 1850 to 1947 have
remained part of the country's Labour Code.
Many others were amended several times, or
had additional clauses inserted, or repealed. The
trend in legislative changes since the last six
decades has been retrogressive, anti-labour, and
pro-capital, especially pro-international finance.
The current decade has witnessed replacement
of Industrial Relations Ordinance 1969 with
more restrictive Industrial Relations Ordinance
2002. Further curbs on workers' rights have
recently been brought about through amendments
in labours law via Finance Bill 2006 violating
the procedures provided under the
Constitution for amendments in any Act of the
Parliament.
Labour policy documents provide a blueprint for
administrative procedures and labour legislation.
Ironically, in Pakistan labour policy has, by
and large, remained divorced from legislation.
The previous four labour policies—1955, l959,
1969, 1972—did not materialize in to pro-labour
legislation. The much-delayed and weak Labour
Policy 2002 does not even acknowledge the
right of association for all workers and neither
envisiones extending basic rights to agriculture
and the informal sector workers. Similarly, the
more recent policy documents, the Labour
Protection Policy 2005 and Labour Inspection
Policy 2006 contain guidelines that are to
impact adversely on labour rights.
Since the last decade the state has increasingly
resorted to strategy of rhetoric in the matters of
labour relations. In line with international organisations'
concern for 'consultations with stakeholders',
the state gets the draft policies and
draft legislative pieces prepared by consultants
and shares these with civil society representatives.
It then leaves the process—and the drafts—
halfway, bypasses stakeholders' advice and suggestions
and comes up with restrictive legislations
and rules enacted through gazetted notifications,
bills, ordinances, or via policy documents
in other areas. Formation of task forces,
comprising multi-stakeholders as members, is
yet another component of state's dual strategy.
A case in point is the Decent Work Task Force
constituted in May 2006 by the Ministry of
Labour just a month before the Finance Bill
2006 with retrogressive changes in labour laws
were introduced. Nine grand objectives spelled
out by the Task Force include realizing of ‘…standards
and fundamental principles and rights at
work’.
Labour Protection Policy and Labour
Inspection Policy
In the last quarter of 2005, the Labour and
Manpower Division shared two policy drafts with
civil society representatives and workers' federations
through consultative workshops organized
by business lobbyist Small and Medium
Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) at
the end of the year. The Labour Protection Policy
and the Labour Inspection Policy were prepared
by the ADB consultants through a Technical
Assistance grant under the Task Force on Labour
Protection. The policy drafts have followed
broader agendas and perspectives of the ADB
and WB. Their neo-liberal positions advocate a
minimum role of the state for a maximum role
of the market in social regulation—-laws and
enforcement—of economic transactions. Growth
rather than development, and hence employment
rather than decent work, is sought by the
Banks as the primary goal of governance. Hence
labour "market regulation" is aimed towards
minimising costs to government and business,
rather than giving priority to realising universal
labour rights.
The policies take no serious account of the fact
that the vast and increasing number of workers
13 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Labour Legislation and Policy
L
fail to receive state protection for even core
labour rights. Hence restricted legislation
remains as the limiting framework for policies.
On both counts of coverage and application,
both the policies violate the national
Constitution, ILO Conventions generally and the
ILO Declaration of Principles in particular.
Among other violations, these policies are tainted
by discrimination between workers and enterprises
of different categories, in separate sectors,
and in varying occupations. The inspection
arrangements in the formal sector are proposed
to be more focused on work places at risk and
further diluted by reducing routine inspection
and replacing by self-reporting, corresponding
reduction in follow-up visits and replacing government
by private firms for special inspections.
The Policy proposes to cover informal sector
through 'Labour Extension' which is “…not concerned
with enforcement. The emphasis is on
information and advice”1.
Labour inspection has a pivotal role to play in
the implementation of national policies and legislation,
as well as ILO core labour standards.
The weakened role of labour inspection is
expected to lead to further deterioration in working
conditions and increased violations of labour
laws, particularly those related to health and
safety and minimum wages.
Consolidation of Labour Laws
Recent years have witnessed a change world
wide towards national labour law reforms prodded
by international financial institutions, ostensibly
to facilitate competitiveness in free trade
but really to secure higher returns on international
capital flows. The discourse on law
reforms now emphasizes 'rationalisation and
consolidation' of legislation, rather than realizing
labour rights. In Pakistan, law making for
social justice has never been the priority of the
august bodies. Hence the country has only 216
legislative pieces on labour, social security and
related human rights legislation as compared to
the number of legislations under similar category
in developed countries (3,915 in France;
2,481 in UK; 1,541 in USA)2.
The Task Force on Labour, 1994, recommended
consolidation of labour laws. The Commission
for Consolidation, Simplification and
Rationalization of Labour Laws was instituted in
March 1999 and reconstituted—with revised
Terms of Reference—through notification of
October 1999. According to the ToR, the
Commission was assigned the task to consolidate
labour laws in to five categories, i.e. industrial
relations, fixation and payment of wages,
employment and working conditions, occupational
health and safety and human resource
development, and labour welfare and social
safety nets3. The Commission was not conferred
with power and authority to inquire in to labour
laws but only to reclassify the laws. Also, the
members of the Commission were divided on
the matter of observance of policy directions
provided in the Federal Constitution and the ratified
ILO conventions4. The Commission was rendered
ineffective because the Chair kept waiting
for a new labour policy. The Labour and
Manpower Division entrusted the task of consolidation
of laws to a local lawyer in 2000.
Draft Labour Legislations
In 2001, the Labour and Manpower Division
shared six drafts of consolidated proposed laws
with the stakeholders—employers' federation,
workers' organizations and related civil society
institutions. The drafts included the Industrial
Relations Ordinance, the Wages Ordinance,
Conditions of Employment Ordinance,
Occupational Health and Safety Ordinance, the
Human Resource Development Ordinance, and
the Labour Welfare and Social Security
Ordinance. In October 2002, General Pervaiz
Musharraf enacted the Industrial Relations
Ordinance 2002, over-riding stakeholders' comments
and suggestions. The remaining five
drafts were put on hold. In late 2006 a draft
Employment and Services Conditions Act 2006
was put on the official website bypassing the
drafts prepared through tri-partite consultations
between state, employers and workers.
Draft Employment and Services
Conditions Bill 2006
The Draft Employment and Service Conditions
Bill, 2006 is a consolidation of twelve earlier
pieces of labour legislation. The changes includ-
14 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Constitution
The state shall ensure the elimination of
all forms of exploitation and the gradual
fulfillment of the fundamental principle,
from each according to his ability, to
each according to his work. Article 3,
Constitution of Pakistan
The state shall make provision for securing
just and human conditions of work…
Article 37 (c).
ed in this draft Act are the same as contained in
the Finance Act 2006 and now stand incorporated
in several labour laws. Also, there is no mention
of paid casual leaves.
Positive aspect of this draft is its enhanced
applicability through inclusion of several new
categories of establishments which were previously
limited to commercial and industrial
establishments. 'Establishment' now includes
“…any business, trade, profession, office, firm,
factory. Society, undertaking, company, educational
institution, hospital, shop, premises,
enterprise or organization of whatsoever nature
which employs workmen directly or through contract…”
5 The ambiguity in 'enterprise or organization
of whatsoever nature' leaves a chink open
for agriculture sector which yet remains to be
included specifically.
Another positive aspect its applicability of rules
under sections 19 (Closure of Establishment),
29 (Payment of Bonus), 46 (Punishment) and 47
(Termination of Employment) to enterprises that
have more than 20 employees. Previously these
were applicable to 50 plus workforce.
There is a need for in-depth study of the draft Bill
by legislators.
Draft Punjab Pension Fund Act 2006
The draft has been prepared as a part of ADB-initiated
reform agenda under the Punjab
Resource Management Programme. Under the
proposed law, the Government Provident Fund
for government employees will be made an offbudget
item and turned into independent fund to
be managed provincially. The Punjab Pension
Fund will be created and managed by Punjab
Pension Fund Management Committee which
may decide either to outsource the management
of the fund or do it internally. This step,
according to the officials, is taken to address the
issue of increasing burden on the provincial
resources on account of pension and GP Fund
liabilities. This draft legislation is another indication
of the state shedding its responsibility and
turning to the corporate sector to manage
employees' social security needs.
Draft Federal Court Bill 2005
In its relentless pursuit of free-market economy
and to attract foreign investment, the government
had announced in August 2004 to establish
federal court to provide 'expeditious and
speedy justice' to financiers and investors
through handling of financial and business disputes
within 90 days. The draft Federal Court
Bill, circulated in January 2005, would have
given the proposed court exclusive original jurisdiction
and appellate jurisdiction on matters
falling under 29 laws pertaining to environment,
finance, business and trade, labour, emigration,
privatization and taxation. The proposed law was
considered unconstitutional by legal experts "…
because it would in effect take away the independence
of the judiciary, and impede the very
concept of 'access to justice' which it is supposed
to facilitate."6 The proposed law was
strongly opposed by the judiciary and rejected by
the Law and Justice Commission. It was
observed in the report of the Commission's
meeting in February 2005 that "… this court will
create chaos in the country and the litigants and
lawyers both will suffer."7
Labour Legislation: Current Status
Fundamental changes in labour laws, brought
about through Finance Act 2006, have given
legal coverage to certain exploitative working
conditions prevalent in many work places: long
working hours in general, late working hours for
women in particular, no compulsory closed
weekly holiday, and no entitlement of overtime
to contract workers. Now sanctioned by the
labour code, these conditions are expected to
become a norm in work places.
During 2006, a large number of workers in the
industries and services (public) sector, all workers
in agricultural sector, and all workers in the
informal sector remained excluded from labour
laws governing rights of freedom of association
and collective bargaining under the Industrial
Relations Ordinance (IRO) 2002. The teachers'
associations in Sindh were banned through a
notification by the Sindh Education Board issued
in July 2006. The ban was annulled as 'malafide
and of no legal effect' by the Sindh High Court in
December 2006.
In addition to the continuing curbs on, or
attempts to curb the rights of organization and
collective bargaining to majority of the workers,
and the restrictions on trade unions on the right
to register and the right to strike, there was an
increase in discriminatory dismissal of trade
union workers under section 46 (5) of IRO 2002
that does not empower the labour court to order
re-instatement of the worker but allow the court
to grant meager financial compensation (with a
discretionary 12 to 30 months' wages) to wrongfully
dismissed workers.
15 Labour Rights in Pakistan
The Punjab Labour Department and the Punjab
Employees Social Security Institutions continued
to be restricted from conducting inspections of
the industrial units for monitoring of labour laws
violation. The anti-labour measures spelled out
in the Punjab Industrial Policy 2003—implemented
through Executive Order from the Chief
Minister—remained in force. Punjab Industrial
Policy 2003 has eliminated inspection of industries/
workplaces by labour inspectors in violation
of ILO Convention 81 ratified by Pakistan.
The inspection has been replaced by a self-declaration
system for units having 50 or more
workers. In contrast, the provincial government
did not enforce the provision of regular meet -
ings, as spelled out in the Policy, of the tripartite
bodies set up for resolution of industrial disputes.
The representatives of employers stayed
away from the meetings of the District Tripartite
Monitoring and Consultation Committee and the
District Human Resource Board. Also, only a
small fraction of industrialists filed the declarations
prescribed under the Industrial Policy
2003.
Finance Act 2006
In July 2005, Federal Minister for Labour,
Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis disclosed
that the Federal Cabinet had approved amendments
to certain labour laws which would be
presented to the Parliament and were expected
to be part of the ordinance after approval from
the Parliament.8 The laws mentioned were the
West Pakistan Industrial and Commercial
Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance,
1968, Workmen's Compensation Act 1923,
Factories Act 1934, and the West Pakistan
Shops and Establishments Ordinance 1969. The
draft amendments were not presented to the
Parliament.
In 2006, through an extraordinary and unconstitutional
move, bypassing the system of tri-partite
consultation, the government made amendments
in seven labour laws through the Finance
Bill 2006 inducted to establish the federal budget
2006-07. The Bill was passed by the National
Assembly on June 22 and put into effect from 1
July 2006.
Under the concept of flexible timings, the
amendment in the Shops and Establishments
Ordinance, 1969, has allowed spread over period
of daily work, inclusive of rest interval and
meals, to 12 hours. The compulsory closed
weekly holiday has been replaced with 'one day
in each week'. The provisions under sections 38
and 45 of the Factories Act 1934 that put a bar
on women to work before sunrise and after sunset
have been scrapped. Instead, women are
permitted to work in two shifts up to 10 pm. The
category of 'contract worker' has been added for
the first time under the Industrial and
Commercial Establishments (Standing Orders)
Ordinance 1968, but without entitlement to
compensation for overtime through the amendment
in the 1960 Ordinance. In addition the ceiling
for overtime has been increased from 150
hours to 624 a year for adult and from 100
hours to 468 hours for juveniles. The amendment
in the Employees Old Age Benefit
Institution Act 1976 has restricted its area of
applicability, and thus of benefits to workers.
The amendment in the Minimum Wages for
Unskilled Workers Ordinance 1969 is positive
for workers as the minimum wage has been
raised from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 4000. The amendment
in the Workmen's Compensation Act,
1923 is also beneficiary to workers as its area of
applicability is increased to the workers with
higher wages (up to Rs. 6000) as well. The
changes in the Companies Profits (Workers'
Participation) Act 1968, and the Workers'
Welfare Ordinance 1971 are largely technical in
nature.
Punjab Employees Efficiency,
Discipline and Accountability Act 2006
The Act passed by the Punjab Assembly in
October 2006 is consolidation of the Punjab
Employees Efficiency and Disciplinary Rules
1974 and the Punjab Employees Efficiency and
Disciplinary Rules 1999 applicable to government
and corporations' employees. Through a
16 Labour Rights in Pakistan
IRO 2002
IRO 2002 stand affirmed/adopted by virtue of having
been made by Competent Authority and by
inserting Article 270-AA in the Constitution, hence it
is not repealed/relapsed after four months of its
promulgation and non-placing of it before National
Assembly.
By virtue of Article 270-AA of the Constitution-a new
article inserted by the Legal Framework Order 2002-
all laws made between 12-10-1999 and the date on
which the aforesaid Article came into force, stand
affirmed/adopted etc. and declared to have been
made by Competent Authority notwithstanding anything
contained in the Constitution.
new clause, the rules will be applicable to retired
persons who may be awarded strict penalties
after retirement on account of misconduct.
Voluntary Pension System Rules 2005
The Rules set out a blueprint for privatizated
pension scheme through self contributions by
workers who have a valid National Tax Number
but are not employed in any position to avail
existing pension schemes. The licenses to the
pension fund managers were to be issued in
early 2007. There are concerns about coverage
and gender equity of the scheme when it is
implemented in years to come. In 2006, a USbased
consultant firm submitted its inception
mission report under ADB technical assistance
to the government concerning 'Reform of
Retirement Benefit Systems in Pakistan'.
IRO 2002
The Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 2002
was promulgated by Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf on
26 October 2002—replacing the IRO 1969—and
saved under sub-Article (1) of Article 27-AA of
the Constitution under the dubious 'law of necessity'.
The IRO 2002 severely restricts labour
rights and violates workers' fundamental rights
enshrined in Article 17 of the country's
Constitutions and in the International Labour
Organization's Conventions (No. 87 and 98) on
the rights to freedom of association and collective
bargaining.
The IRO 2002 excludes:
? agricultural workers;
? rural workers in the informal non-farm
sector;
? urban workers in the informal sector.
The following establishments are expressly
excluded from the scope of IRO 2002:
1. Pakistan Security Printing Corporation;
2. Pakistan Security Papers Ltd;
3. Bata Shoes, when supplying shoes to
the armed forces; Pakistan Mint;
4. Hospitals and ambulance services;
5. Fire fighting services;
6. Postal, telegraphs and telephone
services;
7. Institutions established for payment of
employees' old-age pensions or
workers' welfare (EOBI, Social Security
Institutions));
17 Labour Rights in Pakistan
The ILO Convention on Labour
Inspection
Pakistan ratified the ILO Labour Inspection
Convention, 1947 (No.81) in 1953 (but has not
ratified the Labour Inspection (Agriculture)
Convention, 1969, No. 129).
The ILO Labour Inspection Convention, 1947
(No.81) requires:
? labour inspection under the control of a
central authority;
? effective coordination between inspection
services, other government services and
public and private institutions engaged in
similar activities;
? inspection staffs with status and conditions
of service which assure stability of
employment and independence;
? recruitment of labour inspectors on the basis
of qualification;
? appropriate association of technical experts
with labour inspectors;
? strength of labour inspection services
sufficient to secure effective discharge of
duties;
? sufficient and appropriate furnishing and
transport for inspectors;
? authority for inspectors to enter workplaces;
? authority for inspectors to order changes in
work place arrangements which threaten
health and safety;
? regular workplace inspection;
? adequate penalties for violations of laws and
regulations;
? publication of an annual report containing
designated information.
The Labour Inspection Policy 2005 omits crucial
aspects of the ILO Labour Inspection
Convention.
At present the following national labour laws
contain clauses for inspection:
? Factories Act 1934
? West Pakistan Industrial & Commercial
Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance,
1968
? West Pakistan Shops & Establishment
Ordinance, 1969
? Payment of Wages Act, 1936
? Mines Act, 1923
8. Watch and ward and security services
staff maintained in any establishment;
9. Establishments for generation,
production, manufacture of supply of
electricity, gas, oil, or water to the public;
10. Railways;
11. Civil services (applicable to all employees,
including the low level staff);
12. Export Processing Zones and Special
Industrial Zones (SIZ).
In addition, at the end of Section 1 (4), the IRO
2002 states that “…the Federal Government
may suspend, in the public interest, by an order
published in the official Gazette, the application
of this Ordinance to any establishment or industry
for a period specified in the order…”9. This
clause did not exist in the IRO 1969. Though
throughout the decades, the state had suspended
workers' right whenever it deemed 'fit' but it
was done through the application of section 3 of
Pakistan Essential Services (Maintenance) Act,
1952. The draconian clause was incorporated in
IRO 2002 ostensibly to put related exclusionary
clauses together under this legislation.
Under IRO 2002, the ban put earlier on trade
union rights in Karachi Electric Supply
Corporation, Pakistan International Airlines,
remain in force. The IRO 2002 restricts the right
to strike by imposing longer time limits before
the strike can be called and makes it mandatory
for a trade union to affiliate with a federation
at the national level registered with the National
Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) within
two months. This forced affiliation is contrary to
the ILO Convention on Freedom of Association.
Section 19 requires audit of the accounts of
trade unions and federation by a firm of chartered
accountant appointed by the Registrar.
This was not required under previous IRO.
Also, the jurisdiction of NIRC is restricted to provide
interim relief to workers against unfair
labour practices by the employers. Employers
engaged in serious anti-labour practices are
liable to fines but not to imprisonment. It
restricts participation of workers in management
through work councils, joint management
boards and joint management committees. The
reinstatement of workers in case of wrongful dismissal
is curtailed through restricted jurisdiction
of the labour courts.
Campaign against IRO 2002
The campaign against IRO 2002 initiated by the
workers, trade unions representatives and
labour organizations, and supported by civil society
groups, human rights activists, lawyers, parliamentarians
and media persons, continued in
2006. The alternative draft Industrial Relations
Ordinance Amendment Bill 2005 submitted to
the National Assembly Standing Committee on
Labour and Manpower, was sent to the Prime
Minister for approval in mid 2005 before its submission
to the federal cabinet. The draft bill did
not come for discussion before the Assembly till
the end of 2006.
It is to be noted that on promulgation of IRO in
October 2002, a complaint against the
Government of Pakistan was submitted to the
ILO in April 2003 by the Pakistan National
Federation of Trade Unions, All Pakistan
Federation of Trade Unions and the EOBI
Employees' Federation of Pakistan. The complaint
was supported by the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the
International Transport Workers' Federation. The
ILO Committee scrutinized the complaint and
reached the conclusion that in most of its clauses,
IRO 2002 is restrictive and goes against the
universally accepted rights of workers. The ILO
Committee requested the Government of
Pakistan to bring the law in conformity with the
relevant ILO conventions. ?
18 Labour Rights in Pakistan
19 Labour Rights in Pakistan
20 Labour Rights in Pakistan
mproved quality of life and better terms
and conditions at workplace—as measured
through increase in real wages,
healthy work environment, more free
time and better social security—remain an elusive
dream for the majority of work force in
Pakistan.
Output growth, averaging at 5.42 percent in the
current decade (2000-06)1, has not led to significant
improvement in socio-economic status of
the common worker. Employment growth has
lagged behind labour growth continuously since
the last three decades. Employment generation
is increasingly taking place in the informal economy,
a sector characterized by low wages, job
insecurity and poor working conditions. Growing
unemployment and under employment, and rising
income inequality between rich and poor
indicate the direction of non-distributive, growthled
development. Deficits in basic human capabilities
of workers (access to education, health,
skill-formation, civil and legal rights) have
remained significant. Structural inequalities,
pro-capital/pro-rich economic policies and antilabour
legislation are some of the reasons cited
for depressed socio-economic status and rising
insecurity among the labour force.
Labour Force Participation
Labour force participation rate among persons
of 10 years and above rose from 43.7 in 2003-
04 to 46 percent in 2005-06. A closer look at the
structure of employed workforce reveals that
unpaid family helpers constituted 26.9 per cent
while employees and own-account workers
accounted for 37.3 per cent and 34.9 per cent
respectively in 2005-062. Though unemployment
rate decreased from 7.7 per cent in 2003-
04 to 6.2 in 2005-06, underemployment (less
than 35 hours per week work per person) went
up to 15.19 per cent in 2005-06 from 13.97 in
2003-043. The improved labour force participation
rate is mainly due to an upsurge in the numbers
of under-employed workers and unpaid
family helpers, and could not be termed as
increase in decent employment.
Sector Growth and Employment
Of the total 50.05 million labour force, 43.4 per
cent was employed in agriculture. The sector's
output decreased from 6.7 in 2004-05 to 2.5 per
cent during 2005-064. Employment growth also
registered a decline from 43.22 per cent in
2003-04 to 42.04 per cent during 2005-06 in
the agriculture sector.
Both output and employment growth registered
a decline in the manufacturing sector in 2005-
06 compared to the preceding year.
Manufacturing sector grew by 8.6 per cent and
employed 13.6 per cent of the labour force5.
Capital-intensive and labour-productivity driven
manufacturing sector has been de-linked since
last three decades from employment expansion
with the exception of textile and apparel industry.
The textile sector suffered a sharp decline in output
from 24.7 percent in 2004-05 to 4.3 percent
in 2005-06 due to constraints at the end of the
quota system for international trade. The decel-
21 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Status of Labour
I
Table 1. Trends in GDP, Employment Growth
and Labour Force Growth (%)
1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 20001-06
GDP 4.8 6.5 4.6 5.42
Labour Force 2.93 2.26 2.41 2.12
Employment 2.73 2.21 2.34 1.79
Source: Labour Force Surveys
Table 2. Labor Force and Employment (millions)
1970s 980s 1990s 2000-2006
Total Labour force 21.51 28.46 35.1 43.8
Employed Labour force 20.97 27.46 33.1 40.52
Unemployed Labour Force 0.54 1.00 2.0 3.28
Unemployment Rate (%) 2.43 1.4 5.7 7.4
Source: Labour Force Surveys
erated output is expected to have adverse
impact on employment opportunities in the sector
in coming years unless the trend changes.
Employment expansion in the manufacturing
sector has largely occurred in the informal,
small-scale manufacturing units operating
under severe constraints and labour rights
deficits. Opportunities of secure employment in
the formal, large-scale manufacturing sector
have shrunk due to relocation, cutback and
increasing switch over to outsourcing and contractual
labour.
After agriculture, the second most labour-intensive
sector was the services sector. With a GDP
growth of 8.8 percent which accounted for over
52.3 per cent of the GDP share, the services sector
absorbed one-third of the work force during
2005-06. The two main components of services
sectors—transport, storage and communications
and trade—are labour-intensive and pre-dominantly
informal, characterized by non-compliance
and non-applicability of labour legislation.
Finance and insurance, though the strongest
component of the services sector in terms of
GDP output, shrank in terms of employment
growth in 2005 due to downsizing, privatization
and global political pressures on banking in the
country. The terms and conditions of employment
in the banking and finance worsened for
the majority of workers.
Employment trends in the last three decades
indicate increasing unemployment, rising number
of unpaid family helpers in rural areas and
own-account workers in small scale manufacturing,
transport and services in urban areas.
Another indicator of worsening conditions is the
lengthening of working hours. The absolute
number of employed working more than 48
hours jumped from 10 millions in the mid 1970s
to 18 millions in 2003-04.
Labour in the Informal Sector
Share of employment in the informal sector has
been expanding since the last three decades.
Employment in the informal economy went up
from 70 per cent in 2003-04 to 73 per cent in
2005-066. The deregulation of labour market
under the structural adjustment programs of the
IMF and World Bank and the dismantling of the
public sector enterprises have accelerated this
process. An increasingly large number of workers
are being pushed in to the unregulated and
unprotected informal sector that comprises ownaccount
workers (home-based/micro-enterprise
workers or street vendors) and wage workers
(casual workers with or without fixed employers,
domestic workers and contract workers in factories,
shops and establishments and in free trade
zones). In 2005-06, 36.54 million people were
employed in the informal sector—and excluded
from labour legislation—compared to 13.5 million
in the formal sector of whom a significant
number is excluded under the IRO 20027.
In urban areas trade, hotels, construction, transport,
communication and storages, and services
and utilities have been traditionally dominated
by small-scale entrepreneurs and workers. The
expansion in informal workforce in the manufacturing
sector has been most pronounced in
recent decades. The changing production
process of large-scale manufacturing at the
global level is leading to elimination of the jobs
22 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Table 3. Employment Trends in Pakistan
1974-75 2003-2004 Change Ratio of Share of
(millions) (millions) (millions) Change Change
(%)
In Labour
Force
Labour Force 20.4 45 24.6 2.2 100
Unemployed 0.4 3.3 2.9 8.3 12
Employed 20 42 22 2.1 89
In
Employed
Self-Employed 10 16 6 1.6 27
Unpaid Family Helper 6 10 4 1.7 18
Employee 4 16 12 4.0 54
Employed in Agriculture 11 18 7 1.6 32
Employed in Non-Agriculture 9 24 15 2.7 68
Children (10-14) 0.7 2.5 1.8 3.6 8
Youth (15-19) 0.9 6 5.1 6.7 23
Employed working less
than 25 hours in week 2.1 2.5 0.4 1.2 1.8
Employed working more
than 48 hours in week 10 18 8 1.8 36
Employed in Non-Agriculture 9 24 15 2.7 68
Trade, Restaurants & Hotels2.2 6 3.8 2.7 17
Manufacturing 2.8 6 3.2 2.1 14
Services & Utilities 2.2 7 4.8 3.2 22
Construction 0.9 2.4 1.5 2.7 7
Transport, Storage
& Communication 1.0 2.4 1.4 2.4 6
Source: Labour Force Surveys.
of permanent full-time workers by outsourcing
and subcontracting and by relying on unstable
forms of labour (casual, part-time, temporary,
seasonal, on call). The process has shifted the
responsibility for income, benefits, and conditions
to the individual worker, who stands
deprived of social protection previously accrued
through collective management or state and legislative
mechanisms.
Women in Labourforce
Female participation (of 10 years and above)
has shown an increasing trend since 2001-02.
During 2005-06 it rose to 41.1 per cent (from
37.7 per cent in 2001-02). There are several factors
that caution against optimism associated
with rising female employment: first, improved
enumeration methods have provided better
reporting of female participation previously
ignored, and secondly, increase in female
employment rate has occurred mainly in the category
of unpaid family helpers. Lastly, the majority
of employed women, besides those who work
as unpaid family helpers, have been inducted in
low-paid, low-skill manufacturing/services jobs
on contract or as home-based, piece-rate workers.
(for details see Capter 4).
Labour in Agriculture
Change in land tenure pattern, since the last
four decades, has led to a decline in tenancy and
an increase in the number of small owner-cultivated
farms. (Table 5) Reduced tenancy, both in
the number of farms and in the area farmed,
results in increased landless labour which gets
absorbed as casual labour in agriculture and/or
pushed into urban low-wage labour market.
Casualisation of labour that reached its peak in
the 1990s is reported to have declined in the
current decade. Still the number of farms reporting
casual labour is as high as 42 per cent.
(Table 6).
Increasing casualization of agricultural labour is
attributed to a highly skewed land-holding pattern,
increasing mechanization of agricultural
production and shift in cropping pattern in
favour of cash crops. Sixty-two per cent of the
land-holdings of less than 1 to 5 acres comprise
15 per cent of the total cultivated area, while 5
percent of big land-holding of 25 to 15 acres
comprises 46 per cent of the cultivated land8.
The rising number of small owner-cultivated
farms has not lead to increase in productivity.
Crop production growth has remained stagnant
while the increasing use of inputs—chemical fertilizers
and pesticides—has raised the cost of
production resulting in depressed farm incomes.
The real wages of casual workers have declined
over time. According to official data, average
monthly income of an agricultural worker is Rs.
2,4039, much below the national minimum
wage of Rs.4,000 announced in July 2006.
The low incomes of agricultural workers, combined
with poor access to basic facilities in
health and sanitation, education and physical
infrastructure, have led to a high incidence of
poverty, particularly among landless households.
Of the total agricultural household, 10 per
cent are reported to be under debt.10 According
to an estimate, based on 2000 Census data, in
the province of Punjab there were 250,000
bonded sharecropper households. With average
household size of 7.3, these households are estimated
to include nearly 2 million family workers.
Most of these workers suffer the worst form
of exploitation under the conditions of debt
bondage. (see Chapter 6)
Sub-Sectors
Livestock: Small and subsistence farmers complement
crop income with livestock incomes.
Livestock has come to assume a critical role in
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Table 4. Employment in Informal Sector,
2003-2004
Total Formal Informal Share of
(million) (million) (millions) Informal (%)
Labour Force 45
Unemployed 3.3
Employed 42 7 35 83
Employed in Agriculture 18 0 18 100
Employed in
Non-Agriculture 24 7 17 70
Rural 11 3.1 8 73
Urban 12 4.0 8 67
Male 22 6 15 70
Female 2.3 0.8 1.5 66
Trade, Restaurants
& Hotels 6 0.4 6 93
Manufacturing 6 2.3 3.4 60
Services & Utilities 7 3.6 3.4 48
Construction 2.4 0.2 2.2 91
Transport, Storage
& Communication 2.4 0.5 1.8 77
Source: Labour Force Survey
the rural economy since last couple of decades.
According to official estimates, in 2005-06 as
many as 30-35 million rural population depended
on livestock.11 According to HIES 2001-02,
crop income accounted for only 26.73 per cent
of total income for households operating on less
than one acre farms. A major portion, 45.46 per
cent of the household income came from wages
(causal labour/non-farm activities) while livestock
income input was 2.73 per cent.
Fisheries: Fisheries is an important source of
livelihood for coastal communities in Sindh and
Balochistan. Fisheries workers include crew
members employed on crafts plying in marine
and inland water bodies as well as those
engaged in fish processing plants, curing, yards,
fish vending, fish farming and other auxiliary
industries. Fish workers are among the most vulnerable
and marginalized sections of the labour
force. Coastal settlements, despite proximity to
urban areas (i.e. Karachi) remain deprived of
basic facilities of education, health, sanitation,
safe drinking water and metalled roads.
In year 2003-04, about 395,00012 people
earned their living through fishing. Out of which
31.6 percent were engaged in marine fisheries,
and 68.4 percent in inland fisheries.13 The
employment has increased in marine sector by
six percent and declined in inland fisheries during
the same period due to depletion and
destruction of water bodies and increasing loss
of control of fishers over these resources.
Exploitative contract system operates in inland
fisheries whereby water bodies are auctioned by
the Sindh government to private contractors.
Deep-sea trawlers owned by big national/multinational
businesses over-exploit and pollute
marine resources leaving little catch for local
fishers within 12 to 35 nautical miles.
Labour Force Statistics
The labour force data are pivotal for development
planning and for analysis of economy and
labour. The Pakistan Labour Force Survey, carried
out on annual basis since 1963 by the
Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), has improved
its methodology, concepts and definitions to provide
detailed and credible information on labour
force characteristic. In the Labour Force Survey
1990-91 a new definition was adopted for identifying
females (of age ten years and over) as
employed if they engaged in any of the 14 agricultural
and non-agricultural activities listed in
the Intentional Standard Industrial Classification
(ISIC). 14 The category of 'informal sector' was
introduced in 1996-97 LFS, and of occupational
health and safety in 2001-02.
In 2005 the methodology of the survey was
reviewed and revised with the technical assistance
of the ILO to feed into the Labour Market
Information and Analysis system the government
is putting in place. The LFS 2005-06 was
24 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Table 5: Changing Tenure Pattern
Tenure of Farms Relative Share in per cent
1960 1972 1980 1990 2000
All Farms 100 100 100 100 100
Owner 41 42 55 69 78
Owner-cum-tenant 17 24 19 12 8
Tenant 42 34 26 19 14
Source:www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/aco/publications/emerging_
trends.pdf
Table 6: Pattern of Agricultural Workers
Type of Labour 1972 1980 1990 2000
Family Workers as % 55 60 50 46
of family members
% of Farms reporting 30 45 50 42
casual labour
% of Farms reporting
Permanent hired labour 7 4 4 4
Source:www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/aco/publications/emerging_
trends.pdf
De-linking of Output and
Employment Growth
In the manufacturing sector, productivity
growth was very low (1.3 per cent) in the
1970s. It increased to a very high rate in
the 1980s (7 per cent) and has declined
to middling (4.6 per cent) rate in the
1990s. Employment growth has very
clearly seen a decline from the 1970s,
through the 1980s to the 1990s. During
the 1990s it has become negative.
Output growth in manufacturing was
around 4.7 in the 1970s, it rose to a very
high 8.4 per cent in the 1980s and
returned to a lower level of 4.2 per cent
in the 1990s. Clearly, manufacturing is
the sector where there is a prima facie
evidence of de-linking of output and
employment growth.
Nomaan Majid, Pakistan: Employment,
Output and Productivity, ILO, 2000
done on a quarterly basis for the first time. In the
process was lost the yearly survey of 2004-05
which was not published by the Federal Bureau
of Statistics (during the last 43 years it has published
25 annual surveys). The quarterly surveys,
started from July 2005, were shared through the
official website. The Labour Force Survey 2005-
06, published by the end of 2006, indicates better
gender sensitive reporting.
An omission in the LFS is disaggregated data of
the sub-sectors (agriculture, forestry, hunting
and fishing) lumped together. Data on labour
force under 'Manufacturing' also needs to be disaggregated
in major sectors on similar lines as
economic growth is disaggregated in Pakistan
Economic Surveys.
Conditions of Work and
Employment: 2006
Conditions of freedom, equality, security and
human dignity—the parameters set by the ILO—
define decent and productive work. The 1973
Constitution states in Article 37 ( C ) that 'the
state shall make provision for securing just and
humane conditions of work'. Conditions of work
and employment include minimum wages,
employment contract, healthy environs and safe
working conditions, adequate working hours,
paid leaves, maternity leave, protection from
income loss during sickness, disability and oldage,
and facility for unionization. A number of
national labour laws grant statutory rights related
to conditions of work and employment.
The state of existing conditions of work and
employment in the year 2006 needs to be
viewed in the context of exclusion of a vast
majority of workers, including workers in agriculture,
fisheries and forestry, from statutory rights
through IRO 2002 and non-implementation, and
violation of rights by employers and establishments
of those workers who are covered by
laws.
Conditions of Work and Employment in
Agriculture
Research and data constraints in agriculture,
dearth of civil society organizations engaged in
research and documentation in rural areas, and
limited media coverage—indicating an urban
bias—make it difficult to determine the magnitude
and scope of issues, other than that of debt
bondage, faced by agricultural workers (see
Chapter 6 for details). It is through broader
national indicators, few independent researches,
and voices of resistance raised by grass-roots
movements and organizations that a picture
emerges regarding conditions of work and
employment in the sector.
Deprived of social protection, benefits and
rights—particularly the rights of freedom of association
and the right to organize and collectively
bargain with the employers—through exclusion
from the scope of national labour laws, and
faced with lack of, or limited access to assets
(land, water, credit, education, information),
workers in agriculture are the most vulnerable
and the poorest of the labour force.
Working hours are usually long, ranging
between 12 to 16 hours. Wages are low and
erratic due to uncertainty of crop success or failure.
Workers are often exposed to harsh climatic
conditions and lack of access to protective
gear. Hazardous chemicals, especially pesticides,
pose a number of health risks, i.e. eye
infections, skin and respiratory diseases and
kidney problems. A massive increase in the use
of pesticides, particularly in cotton crops, has
been reported in recent years. Occupational,
accidental, and suicidal poisoning from
organophosphate, the most commonly used
25 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Human Development Indicators
Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the
world with 153.45 million people, is ranked by the
World Bank as a low-income economy with $600 per
capita gross national income (equivalent to Rs. 3,000
per month). Literacy rate in 2005 stood at 53 per
cent while infant mortality rate, mortality rate under
5 and maternal mortality rate were noted to be the
highest among Asian countries. Almost half of the
population--46 per cent—remained without access to
improved sanitation, while 20 per cent were malnourished
and 10 percent had no access to safe
drinking water. In 2005, the shortfall in housing, or
adequate shelter, was estimated at 6.19 million
housing units.
The low human development indicators related to
very low spending on key social sectors. In the year
2004-05, the government spent 1.74 percent of the
current expenditure on education, 0.46 on health,
0.12 on housing and 0.07 on social protection. In
contrast, 27.67 per cent was spent on defense affairs
and services while debt servicing, loan repayments
and administration of executive, legislative and public
services took up the largest share—60.48 per
cent—of budgetary expenses.
pesticide in Pakistan, are consistently reported
in medical journals. These problems are compounded
by poverty: living conditions are often
poor, and agricultural workers have limited
access to clean water and sanitation, fuel and
power, adequate shelter and nutrition.
Variation in the modes of payment (sharecropping,
cash and share, daily cash wage, annual
wage, piece rate in cash or kind), absence of
standard wage levels, non-existence of legislative
mechanisms for redress, and lack of collective
bargaining, make agricultural workers
extremely vulnerable. The employers/landlords
fix wages arbitrarily, generally at the lower side,
delay payment and deduct wages in case of
leave for sickness.
Variations in wages for different tasks have been
documented in a 2002 survey of eight districts
in Punjab15. Wages as share of crop was onefourth
for agricultural workers in Sheikhupura,
one-sixth in Rahmi Yar Khan and one-eight in
Bahawalpur. Cotton pickers in Lodhran were
paid Rs. 49 per 40 kg, while in Rahim Yar Khan,
they were paid Rs. 57 for the same job. Almost
sixty per cent of the workers reported full deduction
of wages for sickness leave.
Conditions of Work and Employment in
Non-Agricultural Sectors
As the case in agriculture, there is no institutional
mechanism to keep a systematic and coordinated
watch on the status of labour in urbanbased
non-agricultural sectors. The number of
citizen sector support organizations involved
with labour issues is very limited. Trade union
federations, due to external constraints and
internal weaknesses, are unable to perform the
task of umbrella watchdog, though they do
respond in times of crises. The trade unions,
despite their decreasing numbers and strength,
still play a vital role in highlighting the conditions
of work and employment, and violation of labour
laws happening in urban areas. The print media
is an important source of information on the status
of workers, its inadequate coverage nonwithstanding.
(See Box)
The following assessment of conditions of work
and employment is based on;
? small surveys, rapid assessments and
sector profiles (transport, light engineering,
construction and textile) undertaken by
PILER in 2005 and in recent years;
? national conventions of workers in the
textile, brick kilns, transport, construction
and light engineering sectors organized by
PILER;
? information sharing by workers'
representatives, trade unionists, social
activists during seminars, training
workshops and consultative meetings
organized by PILER;
? brief reports on work places submitted
by workers' representatives to PILER
newsletter Mazdoor Huqooq;
? PILER's field staff members' interaction
with workers' representatives at the Child
and Labour Rights Centres (four in Karachi—
Regal Chowk Saddar, New Karachi,
Metroville, SITE—and one in Lahore),
established by PILER in 2004;
? Help sought by workers and trade unionists
through the Labour Rights Helpline services
established by PILER at the Regal Chowk,
Saddar, CLRC office in 2005-06.
An important factor in the PILER's assessment
gleaned from the above sources is that the overwhelming
majority of the workers who come in
to contact with PILER have either some form of
unionization in their workplaces or they are in
the process of organizing co-workers and struggling
for statutory rights. Situation is considered
to be worse at places where workers are not
even aware of the existence of core labour
rights, including the right to unionize.
Employment Contract
The vast majority of workers in the informal sector
(home-based, small-scale manufacturing,
services, transport sectors) and significant proportion
of workers in the formal sector in local
registered factories, global retailers' factories,
and shops and establishments, are not provided
written contract of the terms of employment and
26 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Contract Employees in the Public Sector
Thousands of contract workers employed in the public
sector were denied the 15 per cent raise in
salaries announced by the federal government in
July 2006. Majority of these workers are Grade-IV
employees. In NWFP province alone there were
32,000 contract employees who were deprived of
the raise. Representatives of All Pakistan Clerks'
Association, United Municipal Workers' Union and
the Coordination Council of the NWFP Secretariat
Employees' Association pointed out to the media
that most of these workers receive a fixed salary of
Rs. 3500 with no other benefits and no payment for
overtime.
hired on verbal contract. These include daily
wage, piece-rate workers and short-term contract
workers hired on monthly wages. Denial of
written contract deprives the worker to claim her
or his due rights regarding wages and other benefits
in case of cheating by the employer, gives
rise to a sense of insecurity in the worker and
establishes an unjust and inequitable relationship
of oppressor and the oppressed between
the two.
In 2005, the PILER research staff team investigated
five factories in Karachi producing garments
for global retailers. The study indicated
that 91 percent of workers are not given appointment
letters and all the workers were on contract
basis16. A rapid assessment survey undertaken
by PILER team in 2002 had showed 92
per cent of the workers in textile and garments,
bleaching and dyeing and light engineering sectors
were not provided the written contract.
About 40 per cent were employed through contractors
and 29 per cent worked on daily wages.
Only 8 per cent had signed some kind of contracts
with the employers17.
The increasing trend of hiring on verbal contract
on short term basis was corroborated by workers'
and trade unions' representatives in the
national conventions of workers in the textile,
light engineering, transport, and constructions
sectors, in workers' seminars and training workshops
organized by PILER in 2005 and 2006.
According to the reports submitted by workers'
representatives for PILER's newsletters in 2005,
small and large factories (number of workers
ranging from 50 to 1200) that hire on contract
basis included Coca-Cola Beverages, SITE,
Karachi, National Foods Industries (Pvt. Ld),
SITE, Karachi, Arsalan Foods, F.B.Area Industrial
Zone, Karachi, Triple M (Pvt. Ltd) Industrial Area
Township, Lahore, Fauji Sugar Mills Khosky (now
owned by Dewan Group), Textile Fort, Korangi
Industrial Area, Karachi.
Contract Work
The existing labour laws contain provisions that
provide protection to contract labour. However,
these provisions are easily violated by employers
through taking refuge in the provision of section
2 (f) (iv) of the West Pakistan Industrial and
Commercial Employment (Standing Orders)
Ordianance 1968 under which the ‘establishment
of a contractor’ has been declared as in
independent establishment, thus making it easier
for both principal employer as well as contractor
to escape the sanction of law. The contract
system keeps the owner indemnified
against any violation or non-observance of
labour laws. The contracter does not notify his
fixed address, hence does not feel obliged to be
answerable to any authority.
A study of 20 industrial units in Lahore, conducted
in 2005, showed that none of the units
had formal office of the contractor in its premises18.
In the sample, 65 percent of workers were
found to be hired on contract. The contract
workers were being paid half the amount (Rs.
2,071) compared to the regular worker's salary
(Rs.4,323), worked for 12 hours a day and were
denied weekly and other statutory holidays.
Minimum Wages
The minimum wage for unskilled workers was
raised from Rs. 3000 (set in 2005) to Rs. 4000
in July 2006. With the official poverty line (minimum
2350 calorie per adult per day) at Rs.
878.64 per person, a household comprising
27 Labour Rights in Pakistan
ILO Conventions Related to
Agriculture
C 11 Right of Association (Agriculture)
Convention, 1921
C 12 Workmen's Compensation
(Agriculture) Convention, 1921
C 25 Sickness Insurance (Agriculture)
Convention, 1927
C 38 (Shevled) Invalidity Insurance
(Agriculture) Convention, 1933
C 40 (Shelved) Survivors' Insurance
(Agriculture) Convention, 1933
C 99 Minimum Wage Fixing
Machinery (Agriculture)
Conventions, 1951
C 101 Holidays with Pay (Agriculture)
Convention, 1952
C 145 Rural Workers' Organisation
Convention, 1975
C 184 Safety and Health in Agriculture
Convention, 2001
Of the nine ILO Conventions on agriculture,
Pakistan ratified the Right of
Association (Agriculture) Convention
1921. The ratification date on the ILO
website (http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english)
is 11 May 1923 when Pakistan did
not exist on the map.
average family size of 6.8 members (2.06 earning
members) needed Rs. 5,975 per month just
to meet food expenditure, i.e. stay above the
poverty line. Even if two earning members are
bringing in a combined minimum wages of Rs.
8000, it would leave very little to spend on housing,
clothing, transport, education and health of
7 persons. Minimum wage of Rs. 4000 has been
termed inadequate to help uplift 36.4519 million
people out of poverty.
If fully implemented, periodic minimum wage
increases benefit disadvantaged workers, help
reduce exploitation and help reverse the trend of
declining real wages for low-wage workers. Nonimplementation
of minimum wages, combined
with high level of unemployment and underemployment,
is one of the factors behind high level
of poverty.
The trend in real wage levels has been characterized
by two factors: declining wage ratio and
widening of wage differentials. The gap between
wages of low-income and high-income groups
widened further in 2005-06. This was due to
above-average uptrend in wages in the upper
wage groups and also from a massive expansion
of low-wage sector. In the corporate sector, civil
services, army, and multi-nationals a monthly
package for Rs. 100,000 is standard for professional
and managerial staff, in stark contrast
with the minimum wage of Rs. 4000 for
unskilled worker.
Due to poor implementation mechanisms, a significant
number of vulnerable workers did not
get the statutory minimum wage of Rs. 4000
per month. Many continued receiving Rs. 2500
and in certain sectors and regions workers
employed on contract basis in industrial units
and establishments received a monthly wage
between Rs. 1800 to Rs. 2000.
The daily wage rates for unskilled/semi-skilled
workers in the informal sector varied from Rs.
70 to Rs. 150 in 2005-06. Wage differentials by
sex and region were most pronounced for
women in semi-urban and rural areas. For
instance, women working in cosmetic factories
in Swat were paid Rs. 70 per day20. In the
National Foods factory located in SITE, Karachi,
the workers were getting Rs. 110 daily wage21.
In the construction sector, the contract workers
employed at the Attock Cement Factory were
paid at the rate of Rs. 100- 125 per day22 while
the daily wages in the engineering sector were
relatively better, i.e., Razzaq Steel Pvt. Ltd, a
steel re-rolling mill, was paying a daily rate of Rs.
160 to Rs. 200 to its workers23.
The level of wage is the sole determinant
whether the workers can live a life of dignity or
not, that is, the wages are enough to pay for
basic food, housing, education, medical and
other necessary expenses. The statutory minimum
wage aims to protect low-skilled workers
from exploitation and poverty. However, due to
lack of implementation of the minimum wage
law, a significant number of workers in the informal
sector were reported to be getting less than
the minimum wage.
The raise in the minimum wage in 2006 was
announced for the fourth time in 37 years since
the minimum wage floor was fixed at Rs. 140
per month under the West Pakistan Minimum
Wages for Unskilled Workers Ordinance 1969.
The legislation was necessitated because the
first-ever related legislation, the Minimum Wage
Ordinance 1961, did not define subsistence
wage for unskilled workers. The minimum wage
was raised after 24 years to Rs. 1500 through
an amendment in the Act in 1993, a legislation
disapproved by employers and challenged by
few in the court on various grounds. The 2005
raise was also criticized by employers who
regarded Rs.3000 wage on the higher side and
its application to establishments with less than
50 workers a harsh measure impacting nega -
tively on productivity, a rather baseless assumption
as according to the Census of
28 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Retrenchment in the Banking
Sector
"More than 41,000 bank employees
have been rendered jobless due to privatization
and the subsequent closure of
1,800 branches of different banks in the
country since 1998.
Besides financing the black marketing,
property accumulation in the hands of
the elites, windfall gains by the peculators
in the stock exchange, the banks
had transferred more than 700 billion of
their depositors' money to the exploiters.
Rs. 93 billion profit earned by the banks
in 2006 and the profit earned earlier had
not been shared with the depositors."
Dr. Shahid Hassan Siddiqui, Chairman Research
Institute of Islamic banking and Finance.
Manufacturing Industries 1995-96, labour cost
accounted for 7 per cent of the total cost of production.
The Labour Protection Policy 2005 proposed to
establish a National Wage Commission to
review '…but not necessarily adjust' the minimum
wage annually, and to set monthly, daily
and hourly minimums to provide protection for
piece-rate and daily wage workers.
Delayed Payment of Wages
A significant number of establishments and
employers do not pay workers' wages on time,
causing immense hardship to workers and their
families to meet daily survival needs. Most of
the workers have little or no assets or savings to
tide over days and months when their due wages
are held by the employers. The workers find
themselves trapped in undignified and demoralizing
situation and have to request for petty
loans from friends and neighbours and the
neighbourhood grocery shops' owners. The practice
of delayed payment is rampant is small and
medium-size establishments in the informal sector
but is also being reported in increasing numbers
in registered establishments in the formal
sector. The right to receive timely payment of
wages is ensured under the Payment of Wages
Act 1936, applicable to all factories and industrial
and commercial establishments.
Working Time, Overtime, Holidays and
Leaves
The recent amendments in labour laws, brought
about vide Finance Act 2006, have set the ball
rolling for further and speedy deterioration in
work conditions. The amendments in Sections
6,8,9 and 10 of the West Pakistan Shops and
Establishments Ordinance, 1969, will impact a
significantly large number of workers employed
in shops, and commercial, industrial and other
establishments. Overtime work hours have been
increased from 150 to 624 hours for adults and
from 100 to 468 hours in a year. The provision of
double rate of wages for over time ceases to
apply on contract workers and the compulsory
closed weekly holiday has been abolished. Now
the employers can order the worker to work full
day on any day of the week, including Sundays
and Fridays.
Previously under the Factories Act 1943, women
workers were not allowed to work late hours, i.e.
after sunset and before sunrise as it may cause
hardship to them in view of their caring and nurturing
responsibilities. The amendment in section
45 of the Factories Act 1943 nullifies this
provision by insertion of a new proviso that
make women's night shift conditional on the
provision of transport by the employers.
The draft Labour Protection Policy 2005 had
already provided justicification for these
changes through introducing the 'principle of
bilateralism' under which 'collective agreements'
can be made to enhance working time
and over time, on the ground of achieving
increased productivity and "… tight deadlines
imposed by buyers and the need to accommodate
rush orders."24
These laws earlier stipulated that the working
time must not increase from 48 hours per week,
or 8 hour per day and the worker was to be provided
at least one day off in each seven-day period.
Overtime, which must be always voluntary,
was not allowed to exceed 12 hour per week,
and was to be paid at twice the normal rate and
three times their ordinary rate on festival holidays.
The situation regarding unlawful working hours
and over time has been steadily deteriorating
since 1990s due to non-existent implementation
mechanisms ensuring legal rights. By
December 2005, the percentage of workers putting
in more than 48 hours per week had
swelled to 46.69 per cent of the total work
force25. A working day ranging from 9 to 12
hours is a norm in most of the factories, commercial
and industrial establishments, and services
and retailers shops. In power loom factories
in Faislabad, workers have to put in 12 hours of
labour every day, and in case of rush of demand,
workers are forced to work 24 hours. In the global
retail garment factories surveyed by PILER in
2005, 45 per cent workers were denied overtime
payment. In many factories and establishments,
overtime is not paid at the statutory rate
(i.e. F.T. Hoisery Garments, SITE, Omar Textile
Mills, SITE, Karachi, cotton ginning factories,
Tando Allahyar), and payment is unlawfully
deducted for sick and casual leaves. In the global
retail factories 40 per cent of the workers
were denied the right to earned leave.
Forcing workers to put in labour on festivals and
national holidays is not uncommon either. Shani
Weaving Industry, SITE, Karachi, closed its gate
to workers who did not come to work on 14th
Augustt 2006 and stationed police mobile vans
outside the factory to harass the workers. The
employers sacked those workers who had
29 Labour Rights in Pakistan
national identity cards and factory cards and
reinstated those workers who had none of these
cards. The workers approached the Labour
Councilor and Naib Nazim of the respective
union council who talked to the employers. The
employers refused to reinstate the workers or
make due settlement. Only 19 workers filed the
case against the employer in the Labour Court
No. 3 which is pending now. The remaining
workers were afraid to take any legal action.
Maternity Benefits, Child Support at
Work Place, Separate Toilet Facility
for Women
The right to three-month paid leave during pregnancy
and child birth is granted to every woman
working in any factory or industrial and commercial
establishment under the West Pakistan
Maternity Benefit Ordinance 1958 and the
Provincial Employees' Social Security Ordinance
1965. The woman is entitled to maternity bene-
30 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Tariq Mehmood and his fourteen co-workers
of an oil and ghee manufacturing unit,
Waheed Hafeez Oil Mills, were sacked in
August 2005 when they ventured to press for
raise in wages, which the government had
revised upward to Rs 3000 as minimum
wage for unskilled worker with retrospective
effect from January 2005.
The service tenure of terminated workers,
according to their complaint lodged with
Authority under Payment of Wages Haripur,
ranged between 2 to 7 years, but the factory
administration not only declined to own
them as workers of their unit but also denied
them of pecuniary benefits of mandatory
notice pay, earned leave pay, gratuity, bonus
and overtime they were entitled to under the
labour laws.
Sacking of industrial workers is an exercise
most common in the manufacturing sector,
but the way they are deprived of their legal
rights and disowned by the entrepreneurs at
litigation stage is a case in point of how the
majority of workers are exposed to vulnerabilities.
At Hattar Industrial Estate, Haripur, NWFP,
violation of labour laws is rampant. The
workforce is made to work under deplorable
conditions. Workers hired to keep the wheel
of production in motion are deliberately kept
unregistered to deprive them of rights they
are entitled to during and after the service
like minimum wages, earned leave, paid holidays,
safe working conditions, compensation,
Employees Social Security (ESS) and
EOBI cover.
The reason behind keeping the majority
workforce unregistered is that under the
Social Security Ordinance 1965 a person
who has worked for three months regularly
at a place is entitled to avail all the facilities
and '…shall be considered as permanent
employed' and completion of his/her documentation
and registration with ESS and
labor department is imperative. After registration
7 per cent of the total salary of a
worker not exceeding Rs 5000 is deducted
under the Employees Social Security Fund
monthly and the management is bound to
deposit the deducted amount with Social
Security department.
The relevant labor laws also entitle a registered
worker for complete medical cover,
120 days sick leave per annum with 75 per
cent of pay and when a worker is injured during
the work, s/he can avail 180 days leave
with 100 per cent pay while a worker having
contracted terminal diseases like TB, cancer,
or partial disability, can enjoy 365 days leave
with 100 per cent salary.
Sections 13 to 31 of the Factories Act 1934
defines clearly that how safe and trouble
free the manufacturing process should be for
a worker and secured against the hazards
s/he could face during work. Similarly, sections
33B to 33N of the Factories Act further
define the precautionary measures for making
the health and life of a worker secured
Labour Laws Violations in Hattar Industrial Estate
Mohammad Sadaqat
fit (under 1958 Ordinance) if she has worked
'…for a period of not less than four months
immediately preceding the day on which she is
delivered of a child.' This right is flagrantly violated
by majority of establishments and factories.
The vast majority of the women workers
occupy least empowered position at work place
as contract, piece-rate, non-unionized workers in
low-paid, low-skilled job in an over all disabling
environment characterized with constraints to
access education, skills, and information on
labour rights. The practice of rejecting married
women of child bearing age for employment is
rampant in factories and establishments which
prefer young, unmarried female workers to avoid
the situation where the question of maternity
benefits may arise.
The ILO Maternity Protection Convention 2000
(No.183) that outlines statutory entitlements in
four areas—maternity and related types of leave,
cash benefits, health protection measures and
31 Labour Rights in Pakistan
against imminent threats.
Data collected from the office of Sarhad
Development Authority (SDA) Hattar suggest
that the Estate has a capacity to house
355 units in total while at present there are
147 units operational, 85 closed, 80 under
construction and 25 plots are vacant. The
running units included textile, steel, food
industries, oil and ghee, chemical, marble
factories, mineral, pharmaceutical, electronics,
ceramics and other units. These units,
according to official record of the Deputy
Director Labour Hazara division, have a total
workforce of 11,894 (10,394 male and
1,500 registered women).
However, Lala Ehsan Qureshi, chairman
Hazara Labour Federation believes that
about 3000 male and 1000 women workers
at HIE alone are still unregistered either with
Social Security or Labor department, chiefly
because most of the male workers are put
on evening shifts permanently and the service
record of women is not maintained. He
believes that the actual number of workers
is 15000 plus male and 3000 plus female.
Industrialists at HIE, according to Syed
Mazar Ali Shah, president District Labour
Rights Committee, (a Haripur based nongovernmental
organization), conceal actual
strength of their workforce not only to evade
taxes and monthly deductions they are supposed
to deposit with government departments
particularly EOBI and ESS, but also
keep them underpaid and deprived of their
right of compensation in case of disability or
death. He held the labour department
responsible for this state of affairs and
accused Labour Inspectors of giving free
hand to industrialists against monthly graft.
Another loss to an unregistered industrial
worker is that the injured worker or legal
heirs of a deceased worker have to go
through lengthy litigation for compensation
as the industrialists, in most of cases, refuse
to acknowledge legal rights of the affected
worker. Accidents involving either death or
serious injuries often go unnoticed and
hushed up in connivance with officials of
Labour department.
In such cases, according to Mian Zahoor-ul-
Haq, former general secretary Employees
and Workers Union, Telephone Industries of
Pakistan Haripur, the victims face problem
in getting their legal rights of group insurance,
social security, death grant, compensation
under Worker Welfare Fund and other
pension rights for which they are entitled to.
He said that the affected workers and their
heirs having some knowledge about their
rights are made to compromise on half or
even less than half of the total compensation
the workers is entitled to legally.
Data collected from the office of
Commissioner Workman Compensation
Hazara Division show that 12 fatal accidents
involving death, 6 serious injuries to
workers, rendering them partially disabled
while 6 accidents involving minor injuries
were reported during January to December
2004.
According to official record 36 cases of compensation
(including 12 pending cases of
year 2003) were decided by the
protection from discrimination on grounds of
maternity—is not ratified by Pakistan.
The draft Labour Protection Policy 2005 indicates
that the government is pondering to strike
off maternity benefits from the Factories Act
1934. The Draft states: 'The government is of
the view that the payment of wage equivalents
during the period of leave should remain the
responsibility of the social security system, and
not the responsibility of the individual employer'
26.
The right of working women to breastfeed
infants up to six months is not recognized specifically
by the existing labour code. However, the
Factories Act 1934, the law does give authority
to provincial governments to make rules for
'Rooms for Children', stipulating that a suitable
room be provided in the work premises where
more than 50 women are employed '…for the
use of children under the age of six years belonging
to such women..' Firstly, the limit of 50
women excludes the prevalent small units.
Secondly, the provincial governments have not
devised rules or legislation for the provision of
childcare support and access to infants during
working hours.
The Factories Act 1934 stipulates the provision
of separate toilets for women. However most of
the factories and workplace violate the law and
have no provision of separate toilets. The implications
of the absence of this basic facility are
grave on women's health. Most of the women in
such a situation altogether avoid using the
mixed-sex toilet facility and develop stomach,
kidney and urinary-tract related illnesses. In the
PILER survey undertaken in Karachi27, 72 percent
workers had reported the absence of separate
toilet facilities.
Occupational Health and Safety
The majority of work places operating in the
informal sector, and a significant number of
establishments in the formal sector, are charac-
32 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Commissioner Workman Compensation during
January to December 2004 out of which
34 claimants were paid Rs 7.35 millions.
In the year 2005 a total of 27 claims were
filed with Commissioner Workman
Compensation Hazara for compensation to
the workers 14 of whom had died during
duty hours and 13 received injuries. Of these
claims, 22 were decided in favour of affected
workers and their families were paid Rs
3.91m compensation while five were still
pending.
During 2005, 65 cases were filed against
industrialists under the Standing Order
Ordinance 1968 with Authority under
Payment of Wages (APW). The employers
sacked these workers without paying them
cash leave, notice pay, gratuity and other
allowances. The Authority decided a total of
69 cases during this year which included 65
new cases (year 2005) while four pending
from the year 2004, and ordered the industrialists
to pay Rs 5.89 million to the workers.
All the industrialists moved to the next
higher forum of Labour Court and filed
appeals against the decision of APW.
Similarly, during the same year (2005) the
Labour Inspectors referred 502 cases of violation
of occupational safety and health
rules, issuance of hygiene cards, vaccination
against seasonal diseases, maintenance of
record of workers' pay, allowances and display
of holidays, to the Labour Court under
the Factories Act 1934. Of these, 204 cases
related to violation of Minimum Wages Act,
and 358 cases were violation of the
Standing Order Ordinance 1968 that
requires registration and issuance of letters
of appointment to workers against different
industrial units of HIE.
Total 56 cases of general category, which
included appeals against the decisions of
Authority under Payment of Wages,
Commissioner Workman Compensation,
outstanding dues of workers, litigation under
Industrial Relations Ordinance (i.e. formation
of unions and holding of elections) were filed
with the Presiding Officer Labour Court
Haripur during Jan to December 2005 and
the court decided 127 (71 cases from previous
year's pendency).
In the category of summary trial i.e. the
cases referred to Labour Inspector, i.e. violaterized
by overcrowding, lack of ventilation, poor
lightening, inappropriate and harsh room temperature,
lack of toilet facilities and rest rooms,
and non-availability of safe drinking water. In
addition to poor environs and inadequate basic
facilities impacting adversely on workers' well
being and health, the work places are too often
devoid of systems to protect workers from harmful
effects of production processes and prevent
occupational accidents and injuries.
The right to healthy and safe working environment
in different sectors is granted to workers
under various laws. The Factories Act 1934,
Punjab Factories Rules 1978, Sindh Factories
Rules 1975, West Pakistan Hazardous
Occupations Rules 1963, Mines Act 1923, and
Provincial Employees Social Security
(Occupational Diseases) Regulations 1967, are
some of the related laws. The Commission for
Consolidation, Simplification and
Rationalization of Labour Laws (now defunct)
had proposed to put together all related laws
under one comprehensive law. The Draft
Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance 2000
was prepared but no further development had
taken place by the end of 2006.
Occupational health and safety conditions for
majority of workers have deteriorated over the
years. De-centralisation of production into smaller
units excluded from labour laws, increasing
market competition and pro-capital policies are
leading to cost-cutting tactics at the expense of
labour which translates in to lack of safety systems
and increased risks and incidents of diseases
and injuries at work places. Lack of
awareness of health and safety measures and
preventive culture and its long term positive
impact on production on both among workers
and small entrepreneurs/employers make the
situation worse. In medium-sized units, conditions
are not any better because the employers
evade implementation of related laws and discourage
and weaken unionization. Even large
production units in the country often do not have
33 Labour Rights in Pakistan
tion of weight and measure, Standing Order
Ordinance, Factories Act and Minimum
Wage Act, there were 1,968 cases, out of
which 1,540 were decided and 428 were at
the trial stage by the end 2005.
Commenting on the state of implementation
of labour laws at HIE, Sheikh Javed, an
advocate, attributed the violation of labour
laws to the ban on labour unions, adding
that since the industrialists consider unions
as their worst enemies they do not allow the
workers to be united at a platform and the
workers trying to form unions are dismissed
from service.
About issuing letter of appointment, Sheikh
Javed said that workers are sacked two days
before the completion of 90 days of their
service to avoid the law and are called back
again after five to seven days, whereby the
workers are issued new contracts.
He also contested the figures of total registered
workforce at HIE adding that the
Labour and ESS departments have the
same old figures provided to them by industrialists
at the time of registration of their
units under the Factories Act 1934.
Factually the strength of workers could be
more than that of projected figures, he said.
Paltry amount of fine, according of Labour
Inspector Abdullah Khan, is another obstacle
in the way of taking an errant industrialist
to task. He said that for violation of
Standing Order Ordinance the court has the
limit to fine an industrialist not more than
Rs 500 while for violation of the Factories
Act the limit is Rs 100.
He admitted that violation of Minimum
Wages Act and Factories Act is frequent at
HIE, but said that unless workers cooperate
with the Labour Department and come up
with cogent evidence of violation of labour
laws, a violator would go scot free. "It's the
duty of a worker to tell honestly about the
working conditions s/he is exposed to", he
said.
There are 11 industrial zones in NWFPHattar,
Abbottabad, Gadoon, Amangarh,
Hayat Abad, Mardan, Banu, Swat, Dera
Ismail Khan, Kohat and Akora Khatak. Of
them, Haripur and Hayat Abad are the
biggest industrial zones of the province. The
total registered industrial workforce (malefemale)
in NWFP is estimated to be 59,200.
?
adequate occupational health and safety management
systems in place.
The official data on occupational safety and
health, compiled on the bases of accidents
reported to the provincial Directorates of Labour
by the employers, is not only miniscule—as it
exclude majority of workers—but gives an incomplete
picture for it covers accidents but provides
no clue on occupational diseases. The latest
available data indicates that of the total 10,518
factories registered under the Factories Act
34 Labour Rights in Pakistan
With the corporate-driven marketplace being
the salient feature of the national economy,
labour issues are not quite the favourite of
the print media. Understandably it is the capitalists',
the industrialists' and the employers'
perspective that get the limelight. But newspapers
thrive on sensationalism. Since some
areas of the labour sector traditionally provide
human interest stories that attract lay
persons, this subject is not altogether
squeezed out of the newspapers. For this reason
child labour and bonded labour figure
quite prominently in the English language
press. The trend is to report the happenings
that occur in the world of labour quite faithfully.
In other words, what one gets to read is
a cut and dry reportage of what took place on
the occasion being written about. Most news
items take the form of statements by labour
leaders, policy makers and employers/proprietors
on issues affecting the workers.
These help to bring into focus the major
issues of the day.
In 2006, the privatisation process (Pakistan
Steel Mills case), social protection and pension
reforms, demand for the repeal of the
IRO-2002, retrenchment due to privatisation
of public sector concerns (PTCL, Habib Bank),
and the ban on teachers' associations and
the court judgment against it were the main
issues covered by the print media. Child
labour, bonded labour, migration of labour
and brain drain, employment market, wages,
social benefits, industrial hazards, trade
unions and workers' welfare and skill development
were other issues that figured in the
media.
What is noticeable—and betrays a lack of
media interest in labour issues- is the
absence of investigative reporting on major
problems affecting labour in Pakistan. If an
important event takes place that has an
impact on the labour sector, or statements
are made by leaders that have a direct bearing
on labour, or workers stage protest rallies,
these are duly reported by the newspapers
and news magazines. But these are on-thespot
reports that inform the readers about an
event but do not educate them. Not being
analytical, the reports do not probe into the
dynamics of the events that are reported. The
readers do not learn much about behind-thescenes
happenings. Hence the why and
wherefore go largely unreported.
If the newspapers manage to educate the
readers in some measure on labour issues it
is in the form of articles that are published
occasionally. Coming from experts on labour
issues or based on reports published by institutions
dealing with labour questions and
interviews with people directly involved with
labour problems, these articles are enlightening
and instructive. But unfortunately there
are not too many of them.
In the six English language publications (the
four dailies, Dawn, The News, The Nation,
Business Recorder, and two monthly news
magazines, Newsline and Herald) of the year
2005 and 2006 surveyed for this report, only
137 articles were published on labour issues
(71 in 2005 and 66 in 2006), which come to
an average of five articles per month by each
newspaper—not a very impressive record. But
these were valuable for the readers—at least
a few—because in the absence of investigative
reporting the articles/features were the
only form of writing that gave some understanding
of the issues involved. Not all articles
were of a high standard—some being
simply brief human interest stories that do
serve the purpose of drawing the reader's
attention to a problem. But they do not
Labour and the Print Media
Zubeida Mustafa
1934 in the year 2002, the number of factories
that reported accidents were only 1,68028. The
number of factories reporting on accidents is
declining steadily. From 30.58 per cent in 1993,
the figure of the registered factories reporting on
accidents came down to 15.9 in 200229. This is
indicative of an increasing trend among employers
to hide information on incidents of occupational
accidents and diseases.
The other official source, Pakistan Labour force
Survey, which began reporting on occupational
35 Labour Rights in Pakistan
explain much and are not analytical at all.
Neither do they give any historical insight into
a problem. The News published 24 articles/
features on labour issues of any significance
in 2005 and 18 in 2006 followed by
Dawn with a tally of 18 in 2005 and 38 in
2006 in Dawn.
Another aspect that betrayed a lack of media
interest in labour issues was the very small
number of editorials written on them. The six
newspapers surveyed cumulatively wrote
only 24 editorials on labour issues in 2005
and 23 in 2006, with Dawn showing the
greatest concern. It carried sixteen editorials
on this subject while the Business Recorder
commented editorially on labour issues only
fifteen times during the course of the year.
This was not unexpected because newspapers
comment editorially on issues which are
of special interest to them. An issue which
receives minimal coverage cannot expect to
receive extensive editorial comments either.
What was a cause for serious concern was
that many of the issues addressed in the
print media were not analysed from the
labour's point of view. Thus privatisation of
the utilities was a topic that received plenty
of coverage. A lot was written about the
impact of this measure on the economy, the
quality of the services provided, the cost factor,
the danger of monopolisation and so on.
But no writer went into the details of how privatisation
of a concern would affect the
worker, his wages, terms of service and so
on.
When seen against the backdrop of the
national economy and the boom in advertising
that proved to be a boon for the economic
health of the media—both electronic and
print—one can understand the lack of interest
in labour issues. With the corporate sector
dominating every field of life it was not
surprising that labour issues went by default.
This was most conspicuous in the two
English language monthly news magazines
published from Karachi. Herald only wrote on
the human trafficking issue. The Newsline
covered the sale of the PTCL but again it did
not focus on its impact on labour. This is very
significant and speaks a lot about what interests
the media and what is not considered to
be so newsworthy. These two magazines that
have made a name for themselves in the
field of investigative reporting did not deem
labour issues to be deserving of an in-depth
probe.
Another major factor that accounted for this
lack of media attention was the stagnation
in the labour movement. At a time when the
WTO has enabled the industrialised countries
to gain the upper hand not just in the
international economic order which they
always controlled but also the domestic
economies of Third World countries which
fell increasingly under the sway of the developed
states, it is not surprising that in this
scheme of things trade unions and labour
have no place. The retrenchment of workers,
golden handshakes, clampdowns on trade
unions and the low profile adopted by labour
leaders is in sharp contrast to the hey days of
the labour movement in Pakistan of the nineteen
seventies.
Hence unsurprisingly the fact is that labour
comes low in the list of priorities of the government
and as is the wont of the mainstream
media as well. Newspapers after all
take their cue from the trends in society,
governance and the national economy. In
Pakistan the emphasis has been on capital
rather than labour. Enterprises and profits
have received more importance than workers
and their welfare. In this environment,
the print media has little space for labour
issues.
safety and health in 2001-02 annual survey, has
omitted this information from its newly introduced
quarterly surveys of 2005. Data from the
previous annual surveys, however, indicate a
decline in the reporting of occupational
injury/diseases by the workers. The figure fell
from 3.6 per cent workers who reported
injuries/diseases in 2001-02 to 2.8 per cent in
the 2003-04 Survey. The official data is the tip of
the iceberg as it indicates occupational hazards
only in the registered establishments in the formal
sector.
The most hazardous occupation is agriculture
where mechanized farming and pesticides use
inflict grave harm on farm workers who work in
the absence of protective measures. The Labour
Force Survey 2003-04 showed 44.9 per cent of
occupational injuries and diseases in agriculture.
In the manufacturing 14.6 per cent and in
the construction sector 10.7 percent workers
reported work-related injuries and diseases.
Of the 2005-06 brief reports submitted by workers'
representatives to PILER includes hazardous
working conditions at a number of establishments
in different sectors. The hazardous conditions
range from low ceiling of work premises
and cluttering of space due to conveyor belts
and machineries forcing workers to move
around with bent backs, lack of dust suction
equipment in factories leading to inhalation of
dangerous particles and causing respiratory
problems in the construction and textile sector,
and non-utilization of protective gears causing
ocular trauma among lathe machinists in the
engineering sectors.
Social Protection
Increasingly the international financial institutions
have taken over the tasks of defining the
state's social and economic responsibilities and
36 Labour Rights in Pakistan
The Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate, NWFP,
was established in 1987-88 with the huge funding
of USAID mainly to provide alternative
source of livelihood to the former poppy-cultivators
and discourage poppy cultivation in the
Gadoon belt. Poppy was a lucrative crop for the
locals who traditionally made sufficient profits
by supplying the opium products to the manufactures
of heroin.
A total of 450 units were set up in the Gadoon
Estate with generous incentives to the investors
in 1989. However, the incentives were taken
away by the government in 1991 which triggered
the decline of the Gadoon Estates and led
to shut down of the units.
In 2006, only 45 units were operational, 25
working round the clock, while 20 operating for
three/four days in a week. According to an estimate,
about 25,000 workers are employed in
these units. Majority of them work in an
exploitative environment as there is hardly any
authority to keep a check on employers. The
workers are forced to work for 12 hours a day,
overtime is not paid at the stipulated rate, weekly
off-days are denied and the workers are not
covered by social security institutions such as
EOBI and ESS. Majority of the workers get Rs
2500 to Rs 3000 per month, or Rs. 70 to Rs. 80
per day. The increase in the minimum wage
announced by the government is not implemented.
The workers are not allowed to form unions and
in case attempt to form a union, those leading
the move are immediately sacked. In case a
group of workers succeeds in forming a union,
its leaders are bribed and prevented to bargain
for workers' rights. The workers hardly get
salaries on time and if anyone demands timely
payment of wage he would invite his expulsion
and a plain reply to stop working.
Many outsiders have occupied the accommodations
in the labour colony of the Industrial
Estate. The authorities concerned did not ask
the usurpers to vacate the quarters. The office
of the Assistant Labour was shifted to the district
headquarter from Topi to make his office
inaccessible to workers.
A total of 429 labour cases were settled by the
Labour Court in year 2005 in the Gadoon
Amazai Industrial Estate. Among these 414
were dealt by the Labour department and 15 by
the Gadoon Labour Federation.
Workers in the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate
Muqaddam Khan
also the strategies to address these. In 2005,
the ADB consultants drafted the Labour
Protection Policy 2005 based on the Pakistan
Social Protection Strategy Development Study
that the ADB had articulated a year earlier in
2004 for the Ministry of Labour, Manpower and
Overseas Pakistanis, extorting it to exercise
"…some rationalization of the activities by social
protection institutions… to reduce duplication,
concentrate on highest priority areas…"30.
The advise by the ADB to cut down activities and
reduce coverage of social security contrasts with
the evolution of the discourse on social protection
by the ILO advocating an enhanced concept
of social protection based on universal coverage
to "…guarantee access to essential goods and
services, promote active socio-economic security,
and advance individual and social potentials
for poverty reduction and sustainable development."
31
Social protection refers to benefits that cover
both risk management and risk prevention, and
is viewed as crucial tool to prevent deprivation
(promote living standards) as well as vulnerability
to deprivation (protect against falling living
standards)32. In its parameters closer to the ILO
concept of 'decent work' , social protection
embraces protection from deprivation of basic
needs—and rights—for self and the family (food,
health, shelter, education) and of economic
needs (job, income, skill formation, access to
capital and markets), expanded by the ILO under
its Socio-Economic Security Programme into
seven forms of work-related security33.
The existing state mechanisms for social security
provision (contribution-based social insurance
schemes)—Employees' Social Security, Workers'
Welfare Fund, Workers' Profit Participation
Scheme, Compulsory Group Insurance Scheme,
Employees' Old-Age Benefit Institution—are
applicable only to the formal sector's permanent
employees and have very low coverage even
within the formally registered establishments.
The amendment in the Employees Old Age
Benefit Institution Act 1976, through the
Finance Act 2006, has restricted its area of
applicability, and thus of benefits to workers in
future. With effect from July 2006, only the
establishments employing more than 20 persons
are able to register with the EOBI.
Previously smaller units, with 10 workers, were
also entitled for the benefits. Through one of the
amendments in the EOBI Act, the minimum
amount of pension was raised from Rs. 1000 to
1300 per month.
The tax-financed social protection schemes for
destitute (Zakat and Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal) have
low coverage due to poor governance and exclusionary
criteria. It is to be noted that the ILO
Social Security (Minimum Standard) Convention
1952 (No. 102) that identifies nine areas of
social benefits—medical care as well as sickness,
unemployment, old-age, employment
injury, family, maternity, invalidity and survivors'
benefits—remains one of the many ILO
Conventions not ratified by Pakistan. The
Constitution's proclamation (Article 38) to provide
social security to all is yet to be translated
in to reality.
37 Labour Rights in Pakistan Soccer Ball Stitchers of Sialkot
On 20 November 2006, Nike Inc.
announced cancellation of orders for
hand-stitched soccer balls from Sialkotbased
Saga Sports on charges of labour
compliance violations. Nike Inc. accused
Saga Sports for getting the soccer balls
hand stitched at homes raising the
potential for the use of child labour and
unsafe working conditions.
In addition, Nike’s six-month long investigation
had revealed workers' harassment,
unlawful termination and inaccurate
payment of wages by Saga Sports
management.
Nike Inc. cancellation coincided with rising
demand for machine-stitched soccer
balls made in China and decreased
demands for hand-sewn balls made only
in Sialkot.
By the time Nike Inc took the decision to
pull out, the Saga Sports had—3,500 permanent
employees working at the main
factory and 3,500 unregistered workers
who stitched balls at the 13 Nike-authorised,
monitorable stitching centers
spread out at the fringe of the city.
While the unregistered, piece-rate stitchers
lost work immediately, the management
began to plan to lay off permanent
workers in phases beginning from early
January 2007.
During 2006, the coverage of the existing inadequate
state welfare schemes, limited to a small
select number of registered workers in the formal
sector, shrank further with the amendment
in the EOBI Act 1976. The numbers of workers
excluded from statutory entitlements and benefits—
either through legislative/regulatory exclusion
or poor governance/implementation mechanisms—
increased significantly with the swelling
of ranks in the informal sector and agriculture
sector.
Of the three main benefits schemes for the
workers, i.e., the Employees Old-Age Benefits
Institution (age, disability and survivors pensions),
the Employees Social Security
Institutions (health services and some cash benefits)
and the Workers' Welfare Fund (educational
and health facilities), the EOBI's coverage is
relatively better, though minuscule in the larger
perspective.
The EOBI is currently financed through a levy of
6 per cent contribution from the employers
(based on minimum gross wages of the workers)
and one per cent of the minimum wage of the
workers per month. Of the estimated current
population of over 8 million of men and women
38 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Ashraf, 36, a labourer at a weaving factory
in Faisalabad's Faizabad industrial area, is a
chronic tuberculosis (TB) patient. With a frail
body, he operates six powerlooms in a dusty
environment. He was diagnosed with TB a
few years ago and it has been two years that
he completed the nine month treatment.
Still, he is unwell.
"Doctors told me I have completed the TB
treatment course but I don't think I am
cured. I feel weak, tired and have cough,"
said Ashraf. As he spoke to this scribe, the
noise of running looms made our conversation
difficult and pollution made breathing
hard. "Sometimes, I find blood in my sputum.
I think I have got it again."
Ashraf's wife died a few months ago. He
does not know what caused her death as
she was never tested at any laboratory but
had persistent fever, became weak day by
day and finally died. Before her, Ashraf's sister
also died of TB.
"I am not going to see the doctors again
because I neither have time nor money," he
said with obvious signs of helplessness on
his face. He works 12 hours a day to earn a
maximum of Rs 150 a day, an amount hardly
enough for survival. "If I go to the hospital
again, I may lose this job."
As we walk past a few steps in Faizabad, we
meet Mohammad Arshad, 27, another powerloom
worker with a similar story. "I took
medicines for months some two years ago
but doctors say I still have the disease." In all
probability, he did not take his medicines
regularly and was not completely cured. The
worst fear is that his TB may have turned to
Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) type. But he is
not visiting any doctor currently. "I want to
go to the hospital but I don't find time. Every
time I plan to go, I find some work because
I work at night from 6 pm to 7 am," he said.
Except Ashraf and Arshad, none of the
workers interviewed in Faizabad Industrial
area have gone for any test or proper treatment
of TB. "Our work routine and lack of
money do not allow us to go to the hospital,"
said Abdul Ghafoor, 45. They also did not
know whether or not there is any treatment
or testing facility available at the government
hospitals— and that too free of cost.
Majority of the workers only knew of a
homeopathic doctor who had set up a clinic
in street No. 5 in the same area, and visited
the doctor whenever they needed some
medical help.
"Cough, difficulty in breathing and fever are
the main health complaints of workers,"
said Dr. Asghar Ali who runs the homeopathic
Faizan Clinic in the area. "I think 10 to
20 per cent of the workers are suffering
from TB," said the doctor, who claims to be
Occupational Health & Safety:
TB among Powerloom Workers
Zulfiqar Shah
of 60 years and older, EOBI was distributing benefits
to around 254,000 men and women in mid
2006. In early 2005, the EOBI switched from
Habib Bank Ltd to United Bank Ltd for disbursement
of pension and collection of contributions.
In September 2006, the EOBI again shifted its
fund from the United Bank Ltd to the National
Bank of Pakistan. This change has caused hardships
to pensioners, particularly those who live
in small towns and at the fringes of the cities
where NBP branches do not exist.
Employees Social Security Institutions—financed
through a levy of 7 per cent of the wages paid to
workers who earn up to Rs. 5,000—cover less
than 3 per cent of the total labour force in the
organised sector. By September 2006, only
18,694 establishments, having 345,000 workers,
were contributing to the scheme's fund.
The Workers' Welfare Fund has two sources of
finance: a levy of 2 per cent on assessable
income of industrial establishments and surplus
amount from the Workers' Participation Fund.
The contributions are collected by the Income
Tax Department and remain static with the
Finance Ministry which does not administer the
Fund as mandated. According to a 2005 media
39 Labour Rights in Pakistan
a diploma holder in homeopathy. His claim
is entirely based on his experience and
patients' symptoms as he never suggested
them to go for proper testing or TB treatment.
"By going for tests they will spend
more money, so I do not suggest them. I
give them medicines and they are cured."
Asghar Ali is unaware of any treatment
including DOTS (Directly Observed
Treatment Short Course) to fight TB.
There are 300,000 powerloom units in
Faizabad alone, employing hundreds of
thousands of workers. Powerloom workers
are not only denied fair wages and official
working hours, there is no system of occupational
health and safety in place. The dust
coming out of threads weaved at the looms
directly affects the lungs of workers who do
not wear mask or take any other precautionary
measures to avoid this killing pollutant.
They are paid on the basis of per metre
fabric woven without any paid leave. They
work throughout the week without any holiday.
Poor diet coupled with harsh working
conditions and polluted working environment
make them more vulnerable to diseases
like TB. Interviews reveal average
working time as long as 12 hours for an
average daily income between 150 to 200
rupees.
In Pakistan, according to National TB
Control Programme, approximately
250,000 people contract TB every year and
75 per cent of them are in the age group of
15-54 years. Marginalised population, particularly
workers, are the most affected as
their diet is poor and they live and work in
unhygienic conditions.
Working in the informal sectors, none of the
workers we met in Faizabad is covered by
whatever social security schemes are
offered by the government; employers take
no effort to help workers in case they get
sick or face any other crisis.
"TB is common among powerloom workers,"
said Ansari, Secretary General of
Labour Qaumi Moment (LQM), a leading
trade union of powerloom workers in
Faisalabad. "If tested, 70 per cent of the
workers would turn out to be TB positive."
Unfortunately the government schemes and
special initiatives do not target workers, he
said. "Owners are only interested in getting
their work done and government too is not
bothered."
Diseases like TB are not only taking a heavy
toll on the lives of individual workers but are
affecting their meager incomes as well.
Studies suggest that on an average, a worker
affected by TB loses 3-4 months of work,
resulting in potential losses of 20-30 per
cent of annual household income. Pakistan
declared TB a national emergency in 2001
and initiated the National TB Control
Programme with huge international funding.
Yet the most deserving like powerloom
workers do not benefit from the programme.
report35, there are 46,000 registered companies
whose yearly 2 per cent contributions safely add
up to Rs. 32 billion that never reaches the beneficiaries.
The welfare schemes' funds are mostly
swindled by corrupt officials, as noted by the
1996 Task Force on Pension Funds in its report.
The Social Protection Strategy ruled out coverage
to agriculture workers—21.31 million workers
in 2005—and also rejected the idea of any
universal scheme without a contribution from
beneficiaries. The Strategy recommended social
health insurance scheme with premium paid by
the beneficiaries—the informal sector workers,
the poor and the unemployed. The catch is: the
Universal Health Insurance Scheme would be for
'First Level Care' with an emphasis on immunizations,
maternal and child healthcare, family
planning, local control of endemic diseases, etc.
These are the services that the government provide
for, though inadequately, free of charge up
till now. The scheme would be operationalized
through augmenting the existing basic healthcare
facilities, utilizing Employees Social
Security Institutions' networks of health services
in the provinces and seeking NGOs' cooperation.
The ADB consultants' recommendations do not
include raising the abysmally low allocation
(0.46 per cent of GDP in 2005) to health.
Unionization and Collective Bargaining
Due to disabling legislation and repressive practices,
unionization is on decline and union activities,
particularly collective bargaining, have
become increasingly difficult. At present,
according to an estimate, less than five per cent
of the workers in the formal sector are unionized.
Officially the formal sector accounts for
only 30 per cent of the employment outside agriculture.
According to latest available data, over the years
the number of registered unions has declined
from a total of 1,635 in 1995 to 1,202 in 2002
and the membership has declined from
340,569 to 138,456 during this period.36 The
drop in the number of registered unions is most
marked in textile, banking, municipalities and
food sectors.
In 2006, exercise of union activity became
increasingly difficult. There were reports of subtle
tactics by the state in the public sector to
curb union activities—besides blatant outright
ban in some cases—such as transfer of activists
from one place to another, arrest and detention
on various pretexts. In the private sector, dismissal
from services for union activities was
reported frequently by the workers. Employers
also used the tactics of promoting workers
active in unions to the posts of officer/manager
without accruing due benefits solely to exclude
them from unionization. The incidents against
individual trade union workers went unreported
in the media.
The trade unions in Karachi Shipyard and
Engineering Works (KSEW) were banned by the
Registrar of Trade Unions through an order
dated 26 August 2006. The Sindh provincial government
reportedly took this action at the
behest of the federal minister of defence production.
Of the few Karachi cases that came to be
reported to PILER included dismissal of 30
union representatives and workers of National
Foods (Pvt.) Ltd. S.I.T.E.37 The workers filed the
case of unlawful dismissal in the Karachi Labour
Court No. 2 on 18 June 2005. Two active union
workers of Coca Cola Beverages Pakistan, SITE,
Karachi, were dismissed on false charges. The
workers reported that the company resorts to
dismissals whenever the union presents its charter
of demand to the management.38 Fiftyfive
workers of Fauzia Industries Pvt Ltd., a textile
factory in Korangi Industrial Area, were dismissed
from their services in October 2004
when they formed a union and registered it. In
2005, 37 of these workers challenged their dismissal
in Karachi Labour Court No. 4.39 In May
2005, 42 workers of Textile Fort (Pvt.) Ltd,
Korangi Industrial Area, were dismissed by the
employer when they formed a union and applied
for its registration. The affected workers filed
petition with the conciliator at the Labour
Department. Similarly, the United Towels
Exporters dismissed those workers who tried to
form a union. The employers installed two police
mobile vans outside the premises to intimidate
and harass the workers.40 Alpha Containers dismissed
225 workers on 19 January 2005 when
they formed and registered their union. The
workers were then approached by the management
to sign individual contract if they wanted to
be re-instated41. ?
40 Labour Rights in Pakistan
41 Labour Rights in Pakistan
42 Labour Rights in Pakistan
n Pakistan gender relations are characterized
by a relationship of domination
and subordination between men and
women and maintained mainly through
a strict sexual division of labour and demarcation
of space into private and public domains
restricting women's physical mobility. Gender
inequality inhibits women's access to opportunities
to enhance their basic capabilities such as
education, health and skills. With lesser access
to opportunities for quality education, women
are not able to derive benefits from productive
labour market and from technological advancement.
Lack of access to resources (i.e. property and
credit) and deprivation of public goods (i.e, information
and legal rights) increase women's vulnerability
in both private and public sphere.
Gender gap in skills required for the workplace
in contemporary labour market is much higher
than the gap in education. The problem is compounded
with non-marketable and economically
irrelevant education imparted at school and college
levels. Females of all ages bear the burden
of unpaid, unacknowledged care work, both
reproductive and productive, in the private
sphere. In public sphere, the majority of women
works either as unpaid family labour in agriculture
or hold low-paid, low-skill jobs at the lowest
tier of industrial labour market. Women's inferior
social and economic status renders them vulnerable
to sexual harassment at workplace and
in public sphere, and to domestic violence in private
sphere.
Be it life time care work in the private domain or
productive work in the public sphere, women do
not get any long term returns on their labour due
to the nature of their work (unpaid, low-paid,
casual, informal). Social protection and economic
security for majority of women workers, linked
to the male member of the family, thus remain
uncertain and fragile in old age and in times of
disability, disease and disruption of the family.
Gender Inequality Measures
Pakistan is placed at the lowly 105th position
out of 136 countries under Gender-related
Development Index (GDI) that measures gender
inequality in health, education and decent living.
Similarly, for women's economic and political
participation, decision making and power over
economic resources, Pakistan is ranked at the
bottom 66th position out of 75 countries under
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)1.
Pakistan's ranking on Human Development
Index (HDI), and GDI and GEM, has though slightly
improved over the years. In the UNDP 2004
Report, the country was ranked 142nd, in the
2005 Report it occupied the 135th position and
in the 2006 Report it ranked 134th on HDI out
of 177 countries.
Modest gains have been made in recent years
regarding women's access to opportunities in a
few areas. Gender gap in primary and middle
schooling is reduced to 20 per cent in 2004-052.
Another positive indicator is the sex ratio that
declined from 108 in 1998 to 105 in 2003-043,
though the officials think it 'may be due to better
females reporting'4. Political participation of
women has improved through 33 per cent seats
reserved in local councils, 21 per cent seats in
parliament and 17 per cent seats in the senate.
Women's access to health and reproductive
healthcare, however, remains abysmally low and
higher child and maternal mortality rates
remain the 'major issues for Pakistan'5.
Gender, Constitutional Framework and
Labour Legislation
The Constitution, via Articles 25, 26, 27, 34, 35
and 37, ensure equality before law, equal protection
of the law, equality of employment,
maternity benefits during employment, and
equal access to public places. But most of the
constitutional rights have not been given statu-
43 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Women in Labour Force
I
tory effect through special laws to protect
women as promised in Article 25 clause 3 of the
Constitution. On the contrary, laws discriminatory
to women (i.e. Hudood Ordinance) have been
promulgated for political expediency using
women as pawn in the power game.
Particular clauses in the Factories Act 1934
grant rights with special reference to women.
Rights granted under all major labour laws, such
as the Payment of Wages Act 1936, Employees
Old Age Benefit Act, the Provincial Employees
Social Security Ordinance and the Industrial
Relations Ordinance 2002, as well as the
Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923, are applicable
to both male and female workers. The definition
of 'worker' in labour legislation contains
words 'individual', 'employee' or 'person'.
However, in all legislative text masculine pronoun
is used throughout.
Unlike other common law countries, such as
India, the judiciary in Pakistan has not played its
role in the development of anti-discriminatory
law6. Legal experts have not commented upon
or critiqued labour laws for its lack of gendersensitivity,
though a Commission made certain
recommendations to remove gender discrimination
in national labour legislation (see Box).
With the exception of the West Pakistan
Maternity Benefits Ordinance, 1958, (and West
Pakistan Maternity Benefits Rules, 1961) there
are no special laws to protect rights of women at
the workplace, despite specific constitutional
provision for special law making under Article
25 (3). There are no laws containing the provisions
for:
? equal remuneration for equal work for
women;
? protection of women from sexual harass
ment at work place;
? protection of labour rights of domestic
workers;
? protection of labour rights of home-based
workers;
All of the country's labour laws, however, exclude
agricultural workers, informal sector workers
and home-based workers and majority of these
categories of workers are women.
44 Labour Rights in Pakistan
According to the Social Security Department,
Multan, there are 2748 registered factories. Of
these, 1248 are closed while 1500 are operational.
The number of registered workers in
Multan is 40,000 of whom 33,000 are men and
7,000 are women.
There are 75 registered unions in District
Multan. All are male unions. A few unions have
limited number of women members. Over all,
women have no role in these unions. They neither
hold any office, nor attend the unions'
meetings. Two main reasons are: women's insecurity
(of being thrown out of the job) and lack of
confidence (to stand up and speak out), and the
male co-workers' indifference and at times discouraging
attitude vis-à-vis participation in
union activities.
According to unofficial estimates there are
around 40,000 women working on contract
basis or daily wages in the manufacturing
units—(mostly) textile and garments, food products,
cosmetics—in Multan.
? The age of female workers employed in
these units ranges from 12 to 40 years,
indicating incidences of child labour;
? The workers do not get weekly compulsory
holiday and neither gazetted, paid holidays;
? Only 2 percent are regular employees, while
98 percent work on daily wages, or contract
basis, so that the employers would not have
to get them registered with the EOBI or ESS;
? Average monthly wage varies between Rs.
1000 to Rs. 2000. However, the workers are
forced to sign salary receipts indicating
higher amount;
? Women workers are denied 3-months
maternity leave with full pay;
? 80 percent of women have reported
incidences of sexual harassment of varying
degrees;
? Women are not provided with any safety
gear at the manufacturing units;
? According to an estimate, weekly 3-4
women suffer some kind of occupational
accidents involving injuries to fingers,
hands or arms;
? Women do not get any medical support or
compensation for these injuries. Instead
Women Factory Workers in Multan
Bushra Khanum
The recent amendments in labour laws promulgated
through the Finance Act 2006 are to
impact women adversely as longer work day,
and introduction of late evening shifts would
increase hardship. The amendment in the
Shops and Establishments Ordinance, 1969,
has increased daily working hours from eight
hours to 12 hours. The compulsory weekly holiday
has been abolished. The provisions under
sections 38 and 45 of the Factories Act 1934
that put a bar on women to work before sunrise
and after sunset have been scrapped. Instead,
women are permitted to work in two shifts up to
10 pm.
It is pertinent to point out these amendments
have been pushed and endorsed by the business
lobby and the World Bank that view the amendments
would allow "… factories to raise production
capacity and international competitiveness,
while at the same dramatically increasing
women's participation for paid work."7
Of the women workers employed in the formal
sector covered through national legislation, very
few access labour judiciary. According to 2005
survey of labour courts in Karachi, Lahore,
Faisalabad, Sukkar, Peshawar and Quetta, none
of the cases were filed by women.8 The reasons
include male-dominated gender-biased labour
judiciary and governance structures, lack of
unionization among women workers, lack of
legal information and lack of access to legal,
technical and financial support networks and
institutions. Women also face discriminatory
laws and absence of laws in critical areas of
home-based work, sexual harassment at workplace,
and domestic violence.
International Labour Conventions
Of the four key ILO conventions for gender
equality at work place—Equal Remuneration
Convention No. 100 (1951), Workers with Family
Responsibilities Convention No. 156 (1981),
Home Work Convention No. 177 (1996),
Maternity Protection Convention No. 183
(2000)—Pakistan has only ratified Equal
Remuneration Convention, and that too without
making commensurate statutory provisions.
Pakistan has ratified the UN Convention on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women
45 Labour Rights in Pakistan
they are sacked from the job;
? Though 8 hour daily work schedule is
official but employers force workers to put
in labour up to 12 hours without paying over
time at stipulated rate;
? Some women are compelled to work at
night shifts and endure extreme hardships,
loss of sleep, fatigue, and consequent
pressure of neglected care work at the
home front.
Case 1: Death of a Worker
38-year-old, Shakila Mai, a worker at Munawwar
Engineering and Pressing Works, Vehari Road,
Multan, died of burn injuries on 28 June 2005
when the press machine she was operating
caught fire. Commissioner Payment of
Compensation took action when he was notified
and a case was registered against the employer
on behalf of Shakila's son. The employer did not
appear in the court and rejected the claim that
Shakila was her employee. The Commissioner
asked late Shakila's co-workers to come as witness
so that the death grant of Rs. 200,000
would be granted to her son, but women workers
were not willing to appear in the court as witness
for they fear losing their jobs. The case is
pending till today.
Case 2: Injured Child Worker
12-year-old Nadia Bibi, a worker at the Colony
Textile Mills, Multan, lost her arm while working
on a machine. The Commissioner took immediate
action and a case was filed for compensation.
The employer paid the child worker a sum
of Rs. 150,000 within two months.
Case 3: Dismissal from Work after Injury at the
Work Place
16-year-old Maria was inducted in June 2005 as
a helper in Munno Wal Textile Mills Ltd., Mian
Chunno. She was getting Rs. 2500 per month
salary but was not given the employment letter.
On 3 September 2005 she lost her arm when it
got stuck in the machine. Medical expense
incurred on treatment were borne by her family
and when she returned to her work place, the
employer sacked her without any notice or payment
of due wages. Neither was she given the
compensatory amount of Rs. 140,000 she was
entitled to under the law. Maria filed a grievance
petition under 46-IRO 2002 in the Labour Court
No. 9, Multan, for re-institution of her job and
payment of dues. The employer told the court
that she worked on daily wages hence her
demands are invalid. The case is still pending.
(CEDAW) and several ILO Conventions related to
women and work such as, Labour Statistics
Convention 1985, Maintenance of Social
Security Rights Convention, 1982, Night Work
(Women) Convention (Revised), 1948, and the
conventions that cover core labour rights which
are equally applicable to women workers. But
the principles behind the ratified conventions
have not been given statutory effect. Instead
there are laws (i.e. Hudood Ordinance) that discriminate
against women.
The National Commission on the Status of
Women (NCSW), women's organizations and
human rights group have been demanding ratification
of related conventions. The NCSW advocates
enactment of legislation to bring homebased
workers into the mainstream working
class and has recommended amendments in
the West Pakistan Maternity Benefit Ordinance
1958, Employees Old Age Benefit Act 1976 and
Provincial Employees Social Security Ordinance
1965.
Labour Force Participation and
Problems in Enumeration
According to the LFS 2005-06, the country's
female labour force augmented participation
rate was 41.1 per cent while male participation
was 70 per cent. The gap captured by the LFS
between rural and urban women's participation—
54.6 per cent rural women compared to
15.8 per cent urban women—is incongruent
with the ground realities. The number of women
engaged in paid economic activities in big cities
and emerging urban centres as home-based
workers has increased enormously in recent
decades.
Female participation rate in Pakistan, the lowest
in South Asia, is attributed to both definitional
problems and socio-cultural constraints. The
term 'labour force' excludes women engaged in
household activities. This shortcoming was partially
addressed when the Labour Force Survey
1990-91 adopted a new definition identifying
females (of age ten years and over) as employed
if they engaged in any of the 14 agricultural and
non-agricultural activities listed in the
Intentional Standard Industrial Classification
(ISIC)9. It is officially acknowledged that women
are under-enumerated due to social biases and
flaws in sample size and data-collection methodologies.
The Medium Term Development
Framework 2005-10 talks about the issues of
'…continued invisibility of women's economic
contribution to the GDP…' and '…the continued
lack of accurate gender-disaggregated data.'
Composition and Socio-economic
Indicators of Female Labour Force
Occupational segregation characterizes the
labour force. Women are concentrated in certain
sectors (i.e. agriculture, services) and within the
sector hold lower positions than men (i.e in the
garments, women are in stitching while men are
in supervisory roles). Women who are counted
as employed include employees, self-employed
and unpaid family helpers and are generally
engaged in low skill, low wage economic activities.
The majority of these women—59.2 per
cent—works as unpaid family helpers compared
to 19.1 percent of male unpaid family helpers10.
Women workers are concentrated in the informal
sector, both in rural and urban economy. In
the rural economy, 64.6 percent of women11 are
employed in farming, livestock husbandry and
off-farm activities which fall under the category
of informal sector. In the urban informal sector,
78.1 percent12 of women work in diverse sectors,
mostly as home-based, piece-rate or casual
workers on exploitative wages, or are employed
as domestic workers on extremely low remuneration.
In a study conducted across cities and in the garments,
pharmaceutical, food, and plastic goods
manufacturing sectors, the most common reason
cited for women joining the labour force was
increase in household expenditure and the
inability of one or two male earners to meet the
needs of a family comprising 7 members13.
46 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Article 25 of the Constitution of Islamic
Republic of Pakistan states:
(1) All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to
equal protection of law;
(2) there shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex
alone;
(3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from
making any special provision for the protection of
women and children.'
Article 27 ensures that there shall be no discrimination
against a citizen on the basis only of race, religion, caste,
sex residence or place of birth. Article 32 provides special
representation to peasants, workers and women in elected
local government institutions. Article 37 says that the
State shall ensure maternity benefits for women in
employment and women shall not be employed in vocations
not suited to their sex.
Forty-seven per cent of females in the study
belonged to the age group of 14-24 years, 67
per cent were literate (primary education) and
66 per cent lived in katcha or semi-pucca housing
units14. The study revealed that women's
increasing participation in paid labour force
does not automatically translate in empowerment
as is commonly perceived.
While unemployment has shrunk across area
and gender, the NWFP shows an alarming pattern
of rising unemployment among rural
women and to some extent among urban
women. This is officially viewed as '…unintended
consequences of recourse to enforce Islamic
polity are particularly chastening for female
employment.'15
Rights to form Association and
Collective Bargaining
The trade unions in the formal sector are maledominated
in terms of both membership and
leadership. An earlier survey of 15 trade union
federations revealed only one had a woman as
president16. Women were found excluded from
plant level unions as well. In the latest official
data, out of 247,539 members of 1,201 registered
trade unions in 2002, the number of
female members was only 2,13417. In the informal
sector women workers are not organised,
unlike men who form informal labour organizations,
or trade bodies, in various sectors in urban
areas. It is officially acknowledged that women
'…are culturally discouraged from forming
organizations that might take on an active rights
based approach'18.
The barriers that restrict women from organizing
and participating in the unions in the registered
establishments to bargain collectively for better
pay and conditions include discouraging, patriarchal
and patronising attitude of male trade
union leadership, male co-workers, domestic
47 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Legislation Concerning Working
Women
Equal remuneration Act 1976 was enacted in
India on 11 February 1976 which gave statutory
effect to the internationally recognized principles
of remuneration at equal rate to men
and women workers…
In Pakistan there is no special law containing
the provisions of the above universally recognized
principles of equal remuneration for
equal work. Certain recommendations with
respect to working women and their needs
were made by a Commission, which suggested
the creation of a non-discriminatory system of
laws disavowing reliance on gender as a classificatory
devise. All existing labour legislation
and new legislation was recommended to be
drafted with a firm commitment to the rejection
of gender as classificatory device.
The exclusion of some sectors of economy
such as agriculture was noted as likely to leave
working women unprotected. Some other sectors
where banning of trade union activities
particularly affected the women workers
adversely were also noticed such as Pakistan
Security Printing Corporation, the Ministry of
Defence, the Export Processing Zone and
Special Industrial Zone, etc. In respect of
Workman's Compensation Act it was recommended
that the provision with respect to
women's receipt of compensatory payment
should be deleted. It was recommended that
women should be compensated on the internationally
recognized principles of equal pay
for equal work. A special minimum quota
should be fixed for apprenticeship for women
in order to ensure that they have access to
training facilities. Additional work place security,
strict penalties for sexual harassment as
well as other crimes against women and unreluctant
enforcement to protect working
women were recommended.
There were other recommendations with
respect to the representation of women on the
executive committees of the trade unions,
commensurate with the percentage of the
work force that they comprise in the establishment.
Discrimination was noted in the
Employees Old Age Benefit Act 1976 where it
provided for survivors pension in case of a
male child until he attains eighteen years of
age and in case of a female child until she
attain eighteen years of age or until marriage
whichever is earlier. It was recommended that
the surviors' pension should be given to all children
male or female till they attain age of
twenty-one. The Committee recommended the
addition of agriculture and domestic workers
into the definition of workers in order to bring
them with the pruview of all all applying thereto.
But the recommendation of this
Commission has not yet taken a form of any
statutory provision.
--Ali Amjad, Labour Legislation & Trade Unions in India and
Pakistan, Oxford University Press, 2001
workload and responsibilities, societal attitudes,
restrictive mobility, and lack of access to information
on human and labour rights.
Also, anti-union tactics adopted by the employers,
i.e. dismissal from work, intimidation and
harassment of union members and office bearers,
keep women out of union activities as they
fear confrontation and threats from male
employers and loss of job.
Lack of access to information on market dynamics,
macro economic state policies and impact
of globalization restricts women's world view,
undermine their confidence and render them
unable to assert their rights. In the informal sector,
i.e., home-based work, domestic work, these
factors combine with the lack of interaction
among women workers due to isolated and
atomized work places and hinder women to
organize for collective bargaining.
Discrimination at the Work Place on
the Basis of Sex
Discrimination in wages on the basis of sex
alone is common. The employers tend to pay
women less for same skill work. Data for 2004
indicate that more than half of women were
earning less than Rs. 1500 per month. The average
income of women was Rs. 2,593 per month,
compared to Rs. 4,323 for men19.
In 2005, the PIA sacked 74 female crew members
who were 45 years old. The PIA policy of
discriminatory retirement of women at 45 was
termed unlawful by the Court when the sacked
employees challenged the policy in 2003. The
PIA moved the Supreme Court and the case is
still pending. The retirement age for male crew
member is 60 years.
Sexual Harassment at Work Place
In addition to various forms of work-related gender
discrimination, a blatant, gender-specific violation
of fundamental human rights, human dignity
and self esteem is sexual harassment that
the majority of women confront at the work
place. Sexual harassment includes a whole
gamut of uncalled for acts, ranging from indecent
verbal remarks to physical contact to rape.
Sexual harassment cut across sectors, occupations
and positions of the affected at the workplace.
The incidents of the worst form of sexual harassment
(forced sex and rape) are high in the sectors
where women workers are most vulnerable
due to poverty and debt as is the case in brick
kiln, tenant farming and domestic labour. A survey
revealed that 78 per cent of women working
in different sectors-hospitals, banks and offices,
factories, brick kiln, private homes (as domestic
workers) faced sexual harassment of one form
or the other.20 Home-based women, contrary to
prevalent perceptions, do not fare better. The
2005 survey indicated that 25 per cent of homebased
women workers faced harassment (psychological,
verbal, sexual, physical) by customers
(44 percent), family members (42 percent)
and middlemen (15 per cent)21.
Till today there is no legislation against sexual
harassment at workplace. Sections 294, 350
and 509 of Pakistan Penal Code deal with sexu -
al harassment but do not focus on the workplace.
In 2002, eight NGOs formed the Alliance
against Sexual Harassment at Work Place
(AASHA) and with multi-stake holders consultations
and technical inputs from the ILO office,
48 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Gender Literacy Gap
Literacy rates (10 years and above) for
Pakistan and Provinces 2004-05 (%)
Province/Area Total Male Female
Pakistan 53 65 40
Punjab 55 65 44
Sindh 56 68 41
NWFP 45 64 26
Balochistan 37 52 19
South Asia: Women's Participation in
Labour Force
Country Female economic Female economic
activity rate (%) activity as % of male rate
(ages 15 and older) (ages 15 and older)
2004 2004
Bangladesh 52.9 61
Nepal 49.7 63
Sri Lanka 35.3 45
India 34.0 41
Pakistan 32.0 38
Source: Human Development Report 2006, UNDP
Gross Enrollment Rate at Primary Level
(Age 5-9) and Middle Level (Age 10-12 )
Primary Middle
Total 86 46
Male 94 51
Female 77 40
evolved a code of conduct against sexual
harassment. The Code was redrafted and the
word 'sexual harassment' was replaced with
'Gender Justice' in the title on the pressure of the
government officials and the male-dominated
WEBCOP.
By July 2005, the Code of Conduct for Gender
Justice at the Workplace was voluntarily adopted
by 269 local and international companies in
the country and by 10 trade unions. The Code
was envisaged to be supplemented with legislation
in future. The Alliance is ineffective in promoting
voluntary adoption of the code. No evaluation
is available on the impact of the adoption
of the code in 269 establishments.
In October 2006 the government announced
that an amendment to Section 2(b) in the
Removal from Service (Special Powers)
Ordinance 2000 has been approved. This
amendment includes sexual harassment at
work place in the definition of 'misconduct'.
When made statutory, the clause would lead to
dismissal, removal and compulsory retirement,
and or minor penalties, to those accused of sexual
harassment in the public institutions.
Notwithstanding the amendment in this specific
law (that has limited coverage and provision of
only minor punishment to offenders) there is an
urgent need for a comprehensive law of universal
coverage against sexual harassment of
women at workplace with strict penalties.
Home-Based Workers
Unofficial estimates put the figure of homebased
women workers in the informal sector as
75 per cent of the total informal labour force.
Official data do not include the category 'homebased'.
However, the official figures indicate that
women comprise 57.1 per cent of the informal
sector labour force in the manufacturing sector
and 31.2 per cent in the community, social and
personal services sector.22 Home-based workers
include both own account and piece-rate/subcontracted
workers. In Pakistan, the percentage
of own-account home-based women workers is
only 15 per cent (compared to 34.9 percent of
men). Most of the home-based women workers
are either unpaid family workers (59.2 percent)
or employees (25.7 per cent) working on piecerate23.
A 2005 national survey undertaken by the
NCSW in both agriculture and non-agriculture
(garments, leather, carpets, handicrafts, food
products) sectors, indicates that 51 per cent of
home-based women workers put up 6-8 hours of
productive work plus 3-4 hours of care work and
domestic chores which add up to a working day
of 9-12 hours.24 Forty-two per cent of women
suffer from medical problems (hypertension,
diabetics, backache, poor eyesight) reflecting on
poor and stressful working conditions.
In another recent study on home-based work in
four hazardous occupations (agarbatti-making,
prawn-shelling, carpet weaving, sack stitching)
34.7 per cent women reported negative health
impacts (skin diseases, respiratory and musculo-
skeletal problems) and 28.1 reported
fatigue25. Home-based sub-contracted women
workers are the most exploited in the production
chain. This study found that women were getting
as low as 0.6 per cent of retail revenue per unit
for incense stick making and 18.2 per cent for
carpet weaving.
Labour laws in Pakistan do not apply to homebased
work and have not been amended unlike
India where the Minimum Wage Act has been
extended to cover some sections of home-based
worker (i.g. agarbatti workers, garment workers,
bidi workers), and several sectoral Acts offer protection
to home-based workers.
In 2005, a network of civil society organizations,
registered as HomeNet Pakistan, has taken up
the cause of home-based workers and advocates
for their recognition and labour rights. (see
49 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Refined Activity (Participation)
Rates: Percentage of persons in
Labour force to the total population.
Rural Urban Total
Total 46.3 49.2 41
Male 72.2 74.1 68.9
Female 19.3 23.6 11.1
Demographic Indicators 2005-06
Total Fertility(TFR) 4
Crude Birth Rate (CBR) 26.1
Crude Death Rate (CDR) 8.2
Population Growth Rate 1.90 %
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) 77
Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) 350-400
Life Expectancy at Birth Male 64.36 years
Female 66.03 years
Source : Labor Force Survey 2005-06 : Three Quarter Yearly Report
(July-March).
box)
Women in Textile and Garments Sector
Textile industry employs 38 percent of the total
manufacturing labour force and contributes 60-
70 percent to export.26 An estimated 30 percent
of the workforce in textile is female.27 Within the
sector, women workers are concentrated in lowpaid,
labour-intensive down-stream production
(hosiery, ready-made garment, bed-linen, towel),
while men dominate capital intensive ginning,
spinning and weaving processes. Employment of
women in stitching is found to be between 41 to
75 percent of the total workforce in respective
units.28 Also, 90 percent of the work in textile
and clothing industry is sub-contracted.29 A significant
portion of this work is for transnational
companies.
According to a study30 investigating conditions in
textile units producing garments for GAP and
Levi Strauss in four cities (Lahore, Faisalabad,
Sialkot, Islamabad), women are forced for overtime
with inadequate wages (less than Rs. 2500
per month); 95 per cent women have no
appointment letters; 80 percent of the management
do not provide health and safety equipment
and 70 per cent of women suffer from
harassment at work place.
In 2005, PILER investigated five factories in
Karachi producing garments for global retailers.
The study indicated that 95 percent of workers
are not given appointment letters and all the
workers were on contract basis. Most of the factories
do not allow unionization and the workers
have no knowledge of the companies' codes of
conduct. The auditors were found to be more
concerned with physical infrastructure for the
workplace rather than wages, social security, the
rights to unionize and collective bargaining of
the workers.
During the textile workers' convention held at
PILER Centre in 2005, the workers' representatives
from the four provinces identified genderspecific
issues faced by women workers as gender
discrimination in wages, i.e. less pay for
equal work, lack of separate toilet facilities, and
forced night shifts and over time in late evening.
Women in Domestic Service
Domestic service is not included as a category of
work hence domestic workers—majority of
whom are women—remain unaccounted in the
official labour force surveys. Keeping in view the
common socio—economic indicators of this segment
of labour force—illiterate, poor, landless,
rural migrant—the estimates of domestic workers
can be gauged from the official absolute
numbers of 'extremely poor', 'ultra poor' and
'poor' population who fall below the poverty line
(23.9 percent).
50 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Determinants of Occupational Segregation
Social, cultural, historical and economic factors all play a
part in determining the extent and the patterns of occupational
segregation. These factors include:
? Social norms and stereotypical perceptions regarding
men and women, family life and working life;
? Education and vocational training;
? Taxation and social security regimes, and welfare
policies and institutions;
? The structure of the labour market, including the size
of the informal economy;
? Discrimination at entry to the labour market and at
work.
—Time for Equality at Work, ILO, 2003
Discrimination in Remuneration
Disparities in the average earnings of men and
women vary by industry and country as a result
of:
? Differences in human and capitol
endowment: Investment in education,
training, labour mobility and job search are
generally lower for women than for men;
? Horizontal occupational segregation by
sex: It appears that occupations mainly
held by men have substantially higher pay
rates as compared to those mainly held by
women;
? Vertical occupation segregation by sex:
Women tend to occupy lower ranks than
men within the same occupation;
? The necessity to reconcile work and family
responsibilities: Women may be forced or
choose to accept jobs which enable them
to combine family responsibilities with
paid employment.
? Work experience: Women going in and out
of labour force gain less work experience,
which induces lower wages;
? Knowledge: Information upon which to
make comparisons or knowledge of rights
and entitlements may be missing.
—Time for Equality at Work, 2003, ILO
Non-recognition of domestic work as 'occupation',
lack of protection of labour laws and regulation,
low socio-economic indicators of women
who enter this segment of labour force, and the
nature of work place—private domain—make
female domestic workers extremely vulnerable
to exploitation. Low wages, delayed payment
and deduction of wages, long working hours,
lack of rest period and paid holidays, and the
threat and reality of physical and sexual harassment,
including rape, characterize domestic
work.
The number of women domestic workers is
increasing due to both push and pull factors.
Increasing casualisation of labour in agriculture,
indicative of landlessness, pushing families out
of rural areas and in to big cities and towns, is
one of the reasons that rural migrant women,
illiterate or with little schooling, have no option
but to supplement the meager family income
through domestic labour market in urban centres.
Domestic service is no more a privilege,
afforded only by rich households. In the cities,
increasing participation of literate, skilled and
professional women in paid labour force neces-
51 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Domestic Workers
Governments around the world have failed to
acknowledge the rights of domestic workers
perhaps most egregiously by systematically
excluding these workers from key labor protections
afforded to most other categories of
workers under national laws. Such rights
include guarantees of a minimum wage, overtime
pay, rest days, annual leave, fair termination
of contracts, benefits, and workers' compensation.
This exclusion denies domestic
workers equal protection under the law and
has a discriminatory impact on women and
girls, who constitute the vast majority of this
category of workers.
Disregard for the labour rights of paid domestic
workers is directly linked to the status of
women. Domestic work is considered the natural
extension of women's role in the family and
society. Paid domestic workers essentially perform
for wages the tasks the woman of the
house is socially expected to perform for free.
In countries such as Guatemala, where the disproportionate
majority of domestic workers
are indigenous women, gender discrimination
is compounded by racial and ethnic discrimination.
The failure properly to regulate paid domestic
work facilitates egregious abuse and exploitation,
and means domestic workers have little
or no means for seeking redress. Women and
girls employed in private households encounter
a wide range of human rights violations in the
workplace, including extremely long hours of
work without a guaranteed minimum wage or
overtime pay; no rest days; incomplete and
irregular payment of wages; unsafe working
conditions; lack of proper health care; no workers'
compensation; and job insecurity.
Inadequate monitoring by any independent or
government agency compounds these abuses
by creating an environment of impunity for
employers.
Swept Under the Rug: Abuses against Domestic Workers Around
the World, Human Rights Watch Report, 2006
Organizing India's Domestic Workers
Sister Jeanne Devos set up the National Domestic
Workers' Movement (NDWM), India's first national
movement to bring visibility to the plight of 15 million
domestic workers, particularly children. In India
domestic workers often live in harsh, abusive conditions
and are generally not considered "real" workers
with rights to adequate pay and legal protections.
By organizing and empowering domestic workers,
influencing public opinion and lobbying the government,
NDWM is improving the lives of an overlooked
and exploited group, both in India and internationally.
Devos kickstarted the movement in 1985 by bringing
workers together to demand improved treatment and
wages. Since then, the movement has expanded to
offer new approaches to identifying and intervening
in abusive domestic labor situations and human
rights training for migrant domestic workers. NDWM's
lobbying has led several Indian state governments to
adopt reforms like mainstreaming domestic labor
into the informal sector or setting up a code of conduct
for employers of domestic workers.
The NDW now has more than 150,000 members and
has opened counselling centres for abused workers
and helps domestic workers find work with a list of
decent employers. Over the years, its network has
spread to 12 states. Most of its leading activists are
domestic workers themselves, who help in spreading
awareness among co-workers about protecting themselves
from abuse. Each state has a coordinator.
http://www.changemakers.net/journal/300503/profiles.cfm
sitates care work support in the upper-middle,
middle and lower-middle class households and
hence continuing demand for part-time domestic
workers.
Domestic workers are paid on monthly basis for
each category of work—dish washing, laundry,
floor sweeping, mopping, dusting, ironing, cooking.
In the absence of Minimum Wage fixing law
applicability, the wages vary according to residential
locality, type of habitat, category of work
and load of work. Hence a domestic worker in
Karachi gets better pay if employed in a house in
Defence Housing Society than in Liaquatabad.
Similarly, the rate for sweeping a flat is different
than for a bangalow. Cooking gets better wages
than any other domestic chore. On average, a
domestic worker works in 2-3 houses and earns
between Rs. 1500-Rs. 2500 per month in
Karachi. Full-time or live-in domestic servant
gets a minimum of Rs. 3000 with inadequate
provision of food and shelter and a tougher and
erratic work schedule.
Sexual molestation of teenage female domestic
workers is rampant in big cities. Reporting of
these incidents is avoided by the families of victimized
girls who suffer silently and seek medical
intervention of pregnancy from clinics facilitated
by some health NGOs and charity organizations.
Women Workers' Mobilization
There exist a significant number of active
52 Labour Rights in Pakistan
ILO Conventions and
Recommendations on Domestic
Work
To date, no international instrument is devoted
to prescribing labour standards that exclusively
apply to domestic workers. However,
International Labour Standards in many key
areas—including the fundamental human
rights Conventions on freedom of association,
equality rights and forced labour—apply to
domestic workers.
A few Conventions expressly stipulate that they
apply to domestic workers. For example, the
full title of the Sickness Insurance (Industry)
Convention, 1927 (No. 24) is the Convention
concerning Sickness Insurance for Workers in
Industry and Commerce and Domestic
Servants. It provides that the compulsory sickness
insurance system is to apply to manual
and non-manual workers, including domestic
workers.
Certain Recommendations also specifically
address the status of domestic workers. For
example, the Medical Examination of Young
Persons Recommendation, 1946 (No. 79) stipulates
that it should apply to domestic service
for wages in private households (Article I(l)(e)).
The Employment Services Recommendation,
1948 (No. 83) proposes that within the general
framework of free public employment services
that should be established by Member
States, measures should be taken where
appropriate to develop separate employment
offices that specialize in meeting the needs of
employers and workers belonging to certain
categories of work, including the domestic
service "wherever the character or importance
of the industry or occupation or other special
factors justify the maintenance of such separate
offices".
In one of the core ILO instruments, the
Maternity Protection Convention (Revised),
1952 (No. 103), extra care is taken in Article
1(3)(h) to ensure that "domestic work for
wages in private households" is clearly understood
to be included within the meaning of
"non-industrial occupations" that are covered
by the Convention. A Member State may only
exclude this category of work from the scope of
the convention by way of a declaration accompanying
ratification of the international instrument
(Article 7(1)(c)).
In most cases, however, domestic workers are
not specifically mentioned in Conventions. It is
understood in those cases that domestic workers,
like all other workers who have not been
excluded from the scope of a Convention, are
to enjoy the rights, freedoms, and protections
contained within it. The most notable examples
are the Freedom of Association and
Protection of the Right to Organize Convention,
1948 (No. 87) and the Right to Organize and
Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No.
98). Though neither specifically refer to domestic
workers, both entitle them to the full gamut
of freedom of association guarantees, including
the right to establish and join occupational
organizations.
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/ifpdial/publ/in
focus/domestic/3_1.htm
women's groups, resource centres and organizations
engaged in mobilizing and sensitizing
grass-roots women as well as policy makers on
gender issues and women's rights. These struggles
and movements have mainly revolved
around gender equality in access to education,
health, legal rights and political participation. In
recent struggles for control over resources—for
land rights by Anjuman Mazaren Punjab, and for
control over water resources by Pakistan
Fisherfolk Forum—women are in the forefront.
However, when it comes to organizing or supporting
women on labour issues, there has never
been any focused and comprehensive initiative
undertaken by activists at grass-roots level comparable
to Self Employed Women's Association
(SEWA) and National Domestic Workers'
Movement (NDWM) in India, or by woman-headed
professional support groups like Karmojibi
Nari and Bangladesh Center for Workers'
Solidarity in Bangladesh.
The Pakistan Institute of Labour Research and
Education (PILER) that initiated and ran the
Working Women Centre in Karachi for four years
(1990-94), conducted research on women workers
and has been sensitizing women workers
through its mixed-sex educational workshops on
core labour rights, has not been able to play a
significant role in mobilizing women workers.
53 Labour Rights in Pakistan
The ILO's Home Work Convention
Under Convention 177, the defining characteristic
of home work is the existence of an
employer-employee relationship. In effect, an
'employer', who may be either a person or an
enterprise and may provide the work either
directly or through an intermediary, assigns
work to the home worker. An employer-employee
relationship exists regardless of who provides
the equipment, materials and other
inputs used in production.
Home work is not the same as 'homebased'
work because the latter can include work done
at home, the fruits of which are then sold by
the worker to the public. In the home-work scenario,
there is no employer because the worker
is self-employed. The Convention makes the
distinction clear by noting that a home worker
is not an 'independent worker', who has a
'degree of autonomy and economic independence'.
Home work is, thus, only one category of
homebased work. The Convention covers only
home work and not the more general category
of homebased work.
A home worker works at home on a regular
basis. A person who occasionally works at
home but normally works at the premises of
the employer is not considered a home worker.
Along with definitions, the Convention places
certain requirements on a ratifying country. A
country would be required to adopt and implement
a national policy on home work that is
designed to improve the situation of home
workers. Agreeing to and implementing the
policy must involve consultation with the most
representative organisations of employers and
workers and, where they exist, with other
organisations concerned with home workers or
their employers. The policy is implemented
through laws and regulations, collective agreements,
arbitrage awards and other measures.
The national policy should promote equality
between home workers and other wage earners.
This equality includes:
? Right to freely establish, join and partici
pate in organisations
? Protection against discrimination
? Protection in the area of occupational
safety and health
? Remuneration
? Statutory social security protection
? Minimum age for work
The intent is to provide home workers with the
same rights and protection afforded to other
workers employed in factories, shops, offices,
etc.
The Convention also requires a system of
inspections so that laws and regulations
regarding home work are enforced. Violations
would result in remedies, including penalties if
appropriate. The Convention does not indicate
what those remedies or penalties should be. A
country is required, to the extent possible, to
measure home work so that it can be included
in labour statistics. The issues to be measured
(be it the number of people engaged in home
work, the sectors, the rates of pay, etc.) are not
stated in the Convention. -- Paul Vandenberg &
Kanagarani Selvakumar
http://www.labourfile.org/ArticleMore.aspx?ID=800
54 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Sexual Harassment of Domestic Workers
Women domestic workers complain consistently about
being subjected to various forms of sexual harassment.
They say men "bother" them, or "tease" them, and sometimes
their language does not reveal the full extent of the
harassment. For example in a village A, Punjab, a mother
and daughter work together inside the house of a wealthy
employer. The daughter is divorced and live with her parents,
and said that her employer often has men friends
over who drink and then start to "bother" the Musalli girls
like herself and "think nothing of it"…In both Punjabi villages,
women domestic workers alluded to the drunken
behaviour of zamindars, how they make them do "strange"
things. Sexual abuse was hinted at, but women appeared
reluctant to talk about it.
In Shahdadpur, women domestic workers pointed out that
sexual harassment was less common than in Karachi
because Shahdadpur is a small town and most people
know each other. There were numerous stories of women
who had returned from the big city because of the sexual
abuse or harassment they experienced.
A rapid assessment of bonded labour in domestic work and begging in
Pakistan: Rapid Assessment Studies of Bonded Labour in Different
Sectors in Pakistan, 2004, Govt of Pakistan and ILO publication
HomeNet South Asia
HomeNet South Asia is a network organization
of women homebased workers promoted
by UNIFEM and SEWA. It was set up after the
Kathmandu Declaration, formulate in conference
in Nepal in year 2000. The objectives
are: making visible the homebased workers
and their issues ; advocating for National
Policies for homebased workers in each country,
strengthening the grass roots and particularly
the membership-based organizations of
homebased workers in each country and creating
and strengthening the South Asia net -
work of homebased workers and their organizations.
In South Asia, there are about 50 million
homebased workers, out of whom 80% are
women. The Asian Region is a key area for
organizing homebased workers due to the
high number and a strong history of successfully
organizing these workers.
The Networks of homebased workers are
expanding in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal
and Bangladesh. The network organization
developed in these countries are HomeNet
India, HomeNet Sri Lanka, HomeNet
Pakistan, HomeNet Nepal and HomeNet
Bangladesh.
—http://www.homenetsouthasia.org
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
he most retrogressive step taken by the
state during the year was the unconstitutional
promulgation of amendments
in labour laws through the Finance Act
2006. The changes brought about in the
Factories Act 1934, Shops and Establishments
Ordinance, 1969, Industrial and Commercial
Establishments (Standing Orders) Ordinance
1968—lengthening working hours—and in the
Employees Old Age Benefit Institution Act 1976-
shrinking applicability of social security benefitsare
to impact the workers adversely (details in
Chapter 2).
The process of privatization—causing massive
retrenchment—faced a setback in 2006 when
the sale of Pakistan Steel Mills was halted by the
Supreme Court on charges of lack of transparency
of transaction and for bypassing
approval from the Council of Common Interests.
Of the 21 transactions scheduled for 2006, only
two (Pak American Fertilizers and Lasbella
Textile Mills) materialized and privatization of
the remaining, including the energy sector public
utilities (PSO, PPL, SNGPL, SSGC) were put on
hold.1 Resistance against privatization throughout
remained weak and inconsequential in the
backdrop of the agreement reached by the All
Pakistan State Employee Workers Action
Committee in 1991 that gives workers of priva -
tized enterprises severance pay of 25 per cent of
the last year salary for every year worked, a
guarantee of one year of future employment and
the option to take shares in the privatized units.
Numerous incidents of violation of labour laws in
the unionized industrial units were recorded in
the print media. The decision of American company,
Nike Inc., to cancel orders from Sialkotbased
producer Saga Sports of hand-stitched
soccer balls due to labour laws violations was
indicative of the prevalent conditions in local
supply units of multi-national companies which
claim to adhere to ILO's core labour rights and
the company's codes of conduct. Violation of
labour laws in the unionized production centres
of Saga Sports that caused loss of jobs for 7,000
workers, is the tip of the iceberg. Hidden underneath
are isolated, piece-rate workers contracted
by the value chain manufacturers and the
massive informal industrial sector producing for
local consumption.
Non-payment of legal dues of sacked workers
remained one of the many issues taken up by
the workers in the formal sector. The Action
Committee of employees of the defunct SRTC
representing 1,600 workers continued its campaign
for payment of legal dues for the seventh
consecutive year in 2006. The SRTC, a provincial
public utility, was closed down on Dec 6, 1999.
The workers received partial payment of their
dues in 2002 and have been struggling to get
remaining legal dues since then. By December
2006, the workers had not received the dues.
The trade union body representing over 1,700
retrenched workers of Karachi Port Trust held
protest rallies demanding payment of their dues
in full.
Despite constraints faced by workers in the
weakened and shrunk unionized formal sector
and the increasingly expanding non-unionized
informal sector, the trade unions and the federations
and the informal workers' organizations
continued to put up resistance against labour
laws violations. The most determined labour
struggles occured in the agriculture sector and
its sub sector fisheries which the state has kept
excluded from labour legislation since the last
59 years. The two other prolonged struggles are
of the brick kiln workers and power-loom workers
in the informal industrial sector where unionization
does not exist in its typical form yet the
workers have waged collective struggle for better
wages and other working conditions.
The struggles of agricultural tenants, fisheries
55 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Anti-Labour Actions and Workers Struggles
T
workers, brick kiln workers and power-loom
workers indicate the emerging bargaining power
of informal sector realized through mobilization
of affected workers. Agricultural workers cannot
form unions but they do use traditional, institutional
mechanisms to put up a collective fight.
Both Anjuman-i-Mazarain Punjab, representing
the military farms tenants, and the Pakistan
Fisherfolk Forum are membership-based organizations.
PFF is registered under the Social
Welfare Ordinance 1969 while AMP is not.
Informal workers in the industrial sector who
cannot have collective bargaining agent status,
register their membership-based organizations
under the Social Welfare Ordinance 1969.
Compared to informal sector workers' struggles,
resistance put up by unionized formal sector
labour is weakening with the passage of time.
The public sector services utilities workers' (HBL,
PTCL, KESC) campaign against privatization
failed to achieve its objective. The resistance
delayed the process of privatization but could
not prevent it. The failure is attributed to weak,
splintered and political party based unionism.
The unconstitutional ban on teachers' associations
imposed by the Sindh government through
a notification issued in July 2006 was resisted
through a sustained campaign and challenged
in the Sindh High Court by the Sindh Professors
and Lecturers' Association (registered under the
Society Registration Act 1860). In December
2006 the Sindh High Court ruled the ban unlawful
and in violation of the constitutional guarantees
provided to citizens on the right to freedom
of association and expression enshrined in
Articles 17 (1) and 19.
In addition to organized/unionized workers
struggles noted in this section, there have been
countless protests and efforts at individual,
small group/unit and factory level by workers in
different sectors to resist unjust and illegal
actions taken by employers/owners. In many
instances, the workers approached the judiciary.
But there were many more cases of exploitation
of labour where vulnerable, weak workers did
not have the capacity to fight to secure their
rights.
Agricultural Workers
Military Farms Workers' Movement for
Land Ownership
The determined struggle of approximately one
million tenants of the military farms in Punjab
for land rights entered its sixth year in 2006.
Harassment, intimidation and arrests of the tenants
on alleged pretexts by the police and the
military personnel became less frequent in
2006. There were two incidents—in April and
July—of police arrests, leading to protests and
rallies and subsequent dialogue between the
state officials and representative of the
Anjuman-e-Mazarain Punjab (AMP).
The apparent shift in the state strategy—dialogue
rather than confrontation—has not as yet
led to resolution of the conflict though the
process of dialogue initiated in the last quarter
of 2005 between the officials of the army,
Rangers Punjab, Punjab Board of Revenue and
provincial government with the representatives
of Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (AMP) continued in
2006. The officials assured the AMP representatives
that the government was finalizing arrangements
to grant land rights to the tenants and the
notification to this effect would be issued in
early 2006.
In mid 2006 the AMP had three meetings with
senior military officials appointed by General
Pervaiz Musharaf as his representatives, for
negotiation and settlement of the issue. In June,
the Punjab Cabinet approved the draft law to
grant land ownership rights to occupancy tenants.
The draft law was to be presented in the
Assembly.
Dialogues were held between the AMP
Khanewal committee with the Punjab Minister
for Agriculture, Arshad Khan Lodhi, for land
rights of tenants of the Punjab Seed Corporation
(PSC) Khanewal farms. A committee was
formed comprising Punjab Revenue Board,
provincial ministers PSC, Khanewal DCO and
District Nazim. The committee held eight meetings
and submitted a report to the Chief
Minister. Till the end of 2006 no change in the
status of tenants had come about. Though on 28
December Chief Minister Punjab who visited
Okara, assured the tenants that President
Musharaf was expected to announce landownership
rights to tenants in March 2007 when he
would come to Okara to seek votes from this
vast constituency of occupancy tenants spread
over in 10 districts of Punjab.
Fisheries Sector Workers' Struggle for
Control over Water Resources
The fisheries sector workers' focused campaign
against the contract system imposed by the
state on 1,209 fresh water fishing grounds in
56 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Sindh continued in 2006. Under the contract system
the inland fish resources are auctioned by
the Sindh government to private contractors.
Fishermen are compelled to sell their catch to
contractors at nominal prices who earned huge
profit through sale in the open market.
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), the largest
organization representing fish workers, had initiated
a decisive campaign against contract system
and the rangers' occupation of Badin's fishing
grounds in 2004. The PFF campaign to rid
the rangers from forced occupation of waterbodies
in Badin was successful and the federal
government removed the para-military personnel
through a notification in December 2004.
However, instead of handing over the resources
to fisheries workers, the Sindh government took
over control.
The PFF termed 2005 as 'The Year of Struggle'
and the mobilized fishing communities held several
protest rallies and demonstration in Badin,
Thatta, Sakrand, Hyderabad and Karachi. Five
leaders of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum were
arrested by the police during a demonstration
and put in jail for three weeks in May-June 2005.
The arrest and detention of PFF leaders was
challenged in Sindh High court. The fisheries
sector workers, facilitated by civil society organizations,
filed a constitutional petition against
contract system on inland fisheries in the Sindh
High Court on 30 May 2005. By December 2006
the case was still pending after several hearings.
The fish workers' rally against contract system in
June 2006 was suppressed by the police. The
fishermen and women from Sindh's coastal
communities, who traveled and converged on
Toll Plaza, Super Highway and National Highway
to enter the city of Karachi, were dispersed
through baton charge and teargas shelling and
22 of their members were arrested and later
released. The PFF sustained the struggle
through rallies, demonstrations and press conferences
throughout 2006.
Another issue of community control over
resources emerged when the federal government
sold the twin-islands to UAE-based Emaar
Group of Companies for construction of a new
city for the rich on the 12000 acres of land in
September 2006. The islands, Bundal and
Buddo, located at the western end of the Sindh
Coastal Zone bordered by Korangi, Phitti and
Jhari creeks, serve as a wedge between the
coastline and the deep sea and the surrounding
waters provide subsistence fishing to small fishermen.
The islands are used by fishermen as
fish-drying and net-repairing yards. The development
project, if materialized, would adversely
affect Ibrahim Hyderi, the largest fish workers'
settlement with a population of more than
120,000, and would have long term adverse
impact on the livelihood of coastal communities.
Protest rallies, demonstration and seminars to
mobilize public opinion were organized by
Fisherfolk Forum and Pakistan Mahigeer Tehrik
facilitated by several resource organisations.
Despite popular resistance, the army personnel
grazed the few existing huts of fishermen and
forcibly evicted them on 8 and 9 December.
As a result of Pakistan Mahigeer Tehrik's campaign
for a jetty for small fishermen at Karachi
fish harbour, the Sindh Assembly allocated
resources in it 2006 budget for the construction
of the jetty.
Formal Sector Workers
Privatization
In August 2006, the number of public sector
industrial units and utilities privatized since
1991 had reached 161. The total number of
retrenched workers of all the privatized units is
not known as there is no evidence of efforts
from any quarter (Privatization Commission,
trade unions, research institutions, NGOs) to
document the affected workers unofficially estimated
to be around 700,000.
57 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Pearl Continental Hotel Workers' Struggle
The struggle of the Pearl Continental Hotel Employees
Trade Union entered its sixth year in 2006. Three hundred
of the PC workers, terminated illegally from services in
2001, continued to exert pressure on the management for
re-instatement of services and restoration of their collective
bargaining status, through the Pearl Continental Hotel
Karachi Workers' Solidarity Committee formed in 2005.
The conflict began in September 2001, when management
announced that due to a decline in bookings it would
sack all casual and temporary workers and eliminate one
day of paid work per week for permanent staff. The union
called for negotiations, but management ignored the
request and proceeded to fire 350 casual workers. The
union was not informed, nor were the dismissed workers.
The dismissal letter was published in a daily newspaper
and the workers were barred from entering the hotel when
they reported for work the next day.
In March 2006, the Habib Bank Ltd. (UBL)
retrenched over 2,000 of its employees in a
crude manner: the workers received termination
letters without any notice. In October the PTCL
sacked 1,900 of its daily wage workers. In
December the National Industrial Relations
Commission stayed retrenchment of 4,000
employees of National Bank of Pakistan a day
ahead of its happening in response of the petition
filed by NBP Employees Union.
Privatisation of smaller units went unchallenged
as the respective trade unions, with limited
membership, were too weak to resist. Trade
union bodies of large public sector utilities
(KESC, PTCL) put up resistance against privatization
focusing on the terms and condition offered
to the workers. With the exception of PTCL, workers
of none other entity put up fight for unconditional
rejection of privatization.
Pakistan Steel Mills
The Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation was sold to
a consortium of companies (Saudi Arabia,
Russian, Pakistan) on 31 March 2006 after five
years of restructuring that included reduction in
the number of permanent employees from
20,554 to 13,371 by January 2006 through
Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS).
During the pre-privatisation period, the Pakistan
Steel Employees Action Committee, the alliance
of several PS unions, agitated and negotiatedunsuccessfully
with the Privatisation
Commission for a better package. After privatization,
the workers challenged the transaction
through a petition jointly filed in the Supreme
Court in May 2006 by Pakistan Steel People
Workers' Union and Watan Party. On 23 June
2006, the Supreme Court annulled the transaction
for institutional irregularities in the procedure
and bypassing the Council of Common
Interests. However, Supreme Court upheld the
Privatisation Commission Ordinance 2000.
The government reconstituted the CCI in August
which reaffirmed the approval it gave in 1997
for privatization of the Pakistan Steel. The PC
filed a review petition and has re-listed privatization
of PS in its upcoming transaction programme.
Pakistan Telecommunication Company
Ltd. (PTCL)
The failed resistance of PTCL 65,000 strong
workforce against privatization was reduced in
the year 2006 to sporadic and weak protests
mainly by its contract workers—represented by
the PTCL Daily Wages Action Committee—
against retrenchment of its daily wage workers.
In April 2006, Etisalat had taken over administrative
control of PTCL. In a belated and inconsequential
step, one of the splintered unions, the
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited
(PTCL) Lions Union, filed a petition in May 2006
in the Supreme Court challenging the process of
privatisation and handing over of its management.
The PTCL workers struggle against privatization
was strong and spontaneous but short-lived. The
alliance of nine unions-the PTCL Unions Action
Committee (UAC)-which mobilized workers for
unconditional rejection of the privatization of the
PTCL, confronted the state but had withered in
June 2005 when a faction of alliance accepted
the management package for the workers and
the PTCL 26 per cent shares were sold to
Etisalat, the UAE company. In December 2006,
the PTCL management held a meeting with the
employees union over its restructuring policy
that includes mass retrenchment.
Against Labour Laws Violations
Sugar Mills Workers
The long and arduous struggle of jobless workers
of state-owned Dadu Sugar Mill and Thatta
Sugar Mill was partially fruitful when the Sindh
government officially relieved them from the
services of the Sindh Sugar Corporation in
August 2006 and promised new jobs after an
undertaking that the workers would not demand
salary for the period the two mills remained
closed. The collective salary bill of all workers
ran around Rs.10 million.
Over 2,500 ex-workers of the state-owned Thatta
Sugar Mills (closed since 1996) and Dadu Sugar
Mills (closed since 1999) had waged struggle to
obtain their legal dues from the state. According
to an estimate, 20,000 households were affected
by the closure of these two mills including the
families involved in crop cultivation, harvesting
and transportation of sugarcane.
Sugar production industry is the second largest
after textile industry in terms of earnings and
has a direct bearing on the lives of millions of
farm workers who grow sugarcane, one of the
major—and a highly water-intensive—cash crop.
The 78 sugar mills operating in 2006 in
Pakistan, owned by big landlords, bureaucrats,
politicians and the military establishment
58 Labour Rights in Pakistan
employ over 75,000 workers. Since the last few
years the sugar industry is going through a crisis
due to a conflict of interests between the powerful
mill owners and relatively weaker cartel of
growers.
The tussle between sugarcane growers, mill
owners and the state affected the workers most
who went through economic hardship and insecurity
during temporary closure of mills. In many
mills workers confronted an increasingly harsh
management tactics including withdrawal of
benefits and facilities, retrenchments and dismissals,
lack of implementation of labour laws,
promotion of workers to officer status to reduce
union membership and deny legal rights, failure
to register workers engaged on contract or casual
basis and repression and harassment of trade
union officers.
The sugar mills whose management resorted to
anti-labour tactics reported by the press in 2005-
06 include sugar mills managed by the Fauji
Foundation, Army Welfare Sugar Mills, Badin,
Mirpur Khas Sugar Mills, Ranipur Sugar Mills,
Sanghar Sugar Mills and Habib Sugar Mills,
Dewan Sugar Mills, Shah Murad Sugar Mills and
Al Noor Sugar Mills.
Informal Sector
Powerloom Workers' Movement for
Decent Work Conditions
The concerted struggle of powerlooms' workerscarried
forward through protest rallies, strikes,
press conferences, seminars and dialogue with
government—for better wages and decent work
conditions—continued in 2006 in the districts of
Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh.
In March 2006 the District Human Resource
Board (DHRB), Faislabad, had accepted workers'
demands after their prolonged hunger strike for
issuance of social security cards, weekly paid
holiday and registration of power-loom factories.
A special pay committee was also constituted to
evolve a formula for increase in wages. But none
of the state's commitment was implemented by
the end of 2006. The meeting scheduled by
DHBR on 27 December 2006 was postponed till
February 2007.
Since early 2005, powerloom workers had been
campaigning for abolition of the contract system
from factories, increase in salaries and registration
with Punjab Social Security Institution, EOBI
and other labour welfare institutions. The workers'
struggle was strengthened with the induction
of 40 labour councilors and 2 union council
nazim in local the government who won election
in 2005 with the support of Labour Qaumi
Movement (LQM). This victory made a dent to
the hold of industrialists, traders and politicians
on local affairs of the city. In September 2005,
powerloom workers' representatives, including
Labour Quami Movement members, allied with
textile workers in other parts of the country in
the formation of Pakistan Textile Workers' Union
to fight collectively for their rights.
An achievement of the workers in 2006 was
transfer of Director Labour Department,
Faisalabad, who had adopted a harsher attitude
towards workers after the acceptance of their
demands. This came about after the workers
took over the Labour Department premises and
locked the officials in one room for 6 hours.
State officials had a dialogue with the workers
and consequently the director was transferred.
The current director is responsive to the needs
and complaints of workers and takes to task the
employers on violation of laws.3 An important
achievement is the changed attitude of lawenforcing
personnel. Previously the police used
to harass, detain and register FIR against worker
unlawfully.
Faisalabad, the third largest city of 5.5 million is
the hub of cotton textile production. Of this, 3.5
people are directly or indirectly earning their
livelihood from the sector and 500,000 are estimated
to be working in big and small powerloom
factories spread all over the city. The daily wage
of powerloom workers varies from Rs. 75-120
per 100 metres of fabric. Prior to the powerloom
workers’ struggle the average earnings were
reported between Rs. 100-120. By 2006, the
workers' wages were raised to an average of Rs.
200 per day by few of the powerloom owners.
Also, several owners initiated the process of registering
their workers at social security institutions.
Brick Kiln Workers' Struggle against
Violation of Human and Labour Rights
The brick kiln workers' resistance against low
wages, poor working conditions, bondage and
abuse by brick kiln owners and law-enforcing
agencies continued during 2006 in different districts
of Punjab, Sindh and NWFP. The workers
organized meetings, rallies, strikes and conferences—
in Toba Tek Singh, Sahiwal, Lahore,
Islamabad, Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Mardan—to
mobilize public opinion and pressurize state offi-
59 Labour Rights in Pakistan
cials for implementation of labour laws and the
Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992,
upheld by the Federal Shariat Court in its
October 2005 ruling.
Through a government notification issued in July
2006, the wages were raised to Rs. 295 per
thousand ordinary bricks and Rs. 349 per thousand
special bricks against the brick kiln workers'
demand for Rs. 500 per thousand bricks.
Due to non-implementation of minimum wage,
most of the brick kiln owners continued to pay
Rs. 150 to Rs. 200 per 1000 bricks to the workers,
while selling bricks in the open market at
the rate between Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3500 per one
thousand ordinary bricks and Rs. 5000 per one
thousand special bricks.
The brick kiln workers' alliance of the four
provinces, the All Pakistan Bhatta Mazdoor
Union—formed in 2005—continued its campaign
for registration of brick kilns under the Factories
Act and coverage of brick kilns workers under
labour laws, implementation of July 2006 wage
notification, and the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act 1992. In September 2006, the
process of registration of brick kiln workers was
initiated in the Lahore Union Council 148,
Pajian, with the assistance of National Database
and Registration Authority, which waived the
condition of producing birth certificate for
issuance of national identity cards. The access
to national identity cards was to facilitate
150,000 brick kiln workers in Lahore district to
register with social security institutions. ?
60 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Glass Bangle Factories Workers'
Campaign for Decent Work
Conditions
The glass bangle factories workers' years-long
struggle did not bring any result in 2006. The
Hyderabad Glass Bangle Mazdoor Ittehad
Union regretted that despite the workers' continued
struggle and meetings with the Labour
Department, Commissioner Social Security,
Employees Old-age Benefit Institution, etc., no
action had been taken against the factory owners
who violate labour laws.
Glass bangle factories workers in Hyderabad
city had waged a concerted struggle in 2005
for increase in wages, regularization of contract
workers and access to social security benefits
in pursuance of their seven year old
demands ignored by the factory owners. The
factories owners responded in a menacing tactic
by shutting down 35 factories on 17 January
2005. The struggle was led by Hyderabad Glass
Bangle Mazdoor Ittehad Union and Hyderabad
Chori Welding Workers' Union and supported
by the National Trade Unions Federation. The
factory owners re-started production after a
month of lock-out assuring workers their
demands would be met. The factory owners
again illegally closed the factories on
September 22 when the unions pressurized
them to honour the promises.
The Glass Bangle Mazdoor Ittehad Union's representatives
held meetings with the Labour
Department and SESSI officials, submitted
memorandums to the secretary and the director
Labour Department, the Sindh chief minister,
prime minister and the president but no
action was taken.
According to an estimate 400,000 men,
women and children are involved in glass bangle
production and ancillary work in 52 units in
Hyderabad city, of whom a sizeable number
work at home. It is estimated that each bangle
passes through at least 60 persons—most of
them low-paid workers—before it is put up for
sale. While the main work is done in the factory,
the decoration, the soldering, or jalai, of
joints and the straightening and bending are
done in homes under dismal conditions and
without protective gears by women and children.
Lack of safety measures in glass bangle
factories exposes the workers—who work at furnaces
and with molten glass—to high temperature
and thermal radiation and consequent
health risks. For Hyderabad factory workers,
however, the priority issues were related to
wages and security benefits in times of illness,
injury or death.
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Specific groups of workers suffer from
multiple forms of deprivation. Living at
the margins of socio-economic structures—
with weak representation in the
mainstream society—they are discriminated due
to caste, race, nationality, religion, occupation,
age or gender, and denied access to social services
(i.e. education, health) and financial assets
(land, credit). Labour market exclusion renders
them unable to generate a decent and livable
family income. Surviving on subsistence employment,
these groups are compelled to take family
decisions—i.e. putting children to work, taking
binding loans—that deepen exclusion.
Of particular concern are the distinct groups of
bonded labour and migrant labour. As a marginalized
category, child labour is endemic, cuts
across excluded groups and is inclusive of lowerincome
groups in the informal economy.
Gender is yet another basis of discrimination
cutting across excluded groups. Migrant/refugee
women, women under bondage (in agriculture
and brick kiln sectors) and female child workers
suffer from particular forms of exploitation
linked to gender (i.e. trafficking as sex workers,
sexual violence). Female workers in marginalized
groups tend to be in double jeopardy: inside
home they face increased oppression from male
kin arising out of their own insecurity in a different
milieu, and in the outer world they are more
prone to exploitation as cheap labour.
Migrant Workers Residing in Pakistan
This section focuses on the group of migrant settlers
of non-Pakistani origin who were compelled
to migrate to Pakistan due to poverty or
political conflicts in their home countries and
since then have been residing in Pakistan.
The government's bias towards migrants is evident
in its official discourse. Termed as 'illegal
immigrants', this population is thought to be
"…burdening the country's already strained
socio-economic infrastructure and adding to the
crime rate"1. Studies indicate that migrant
labour (a component of the country's dynamic
informal labour force) contributes more to the
local economy than costs it, and according to
media reports migrants are seldom found to be
involved in hard crimes.
Migrant workers are concentrated in low-skilled,
low-paid jobs in the services (domestic work,
food and catering, hawking, waste management),
fisheries and textile sectors, home-based
manufacturing sector and in brick kilns.
Migrant workers confront discrimination at several
levels on the basis of nationality, ethnicity or
language. Lack of official documents do not only
deprives refugee/migrant workers of the access
to public utilities, it also makes them vulnerable
to harassment and extortion by the police and
other law enforcing agencies.
Though Pakistan is home to significant number
of migrants and unprecedented number of
refugees since more than three decades, it has
not ratified the 1951 UN Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol that
have set out the rights of the refugees and the
responsibilities of the country that grants asylum
to refugees. Pakistan has also not ratified
the 1990 International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers
and Members of Their Families and neither the
ILO Conventions related to migrants. The two
major ILO conventions concerning migrant workers
are the Migration for Employment
Convention (Revised) (No. 97) of 1949 and the
Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions)
Convention (No. 143) of 1975.
Serious efforts at providing migrants/refugees
with official status began with the promulgation
of the National Database Registration Authority
61 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Marginalized Labour
T
Ordinance 2000 and the Foreigners
(Amendment) Ordinance 2000 and subsequent
establishment of National Database
Registration Authority (NADRA) in 2000 and
National Aliens Registration Authority (NARA) in
2001 under the Ministry of Interior. Registration
of migrant settlers, including Afghan refugees2,
in Karachi was initiated by NARA in 2002, while
registration of Afghan refugees began as late as
in October 2006 by NADRA.
It is expected that the official documentation
would lead to decline in harassment of migrant
workers and refugees by the law-enforcing agencies
though social bias and discrimination
against migrant workers can only be tackled
with a long-term integration policy aimed at educating
both host and guest populations.
Afghan Refugees
There are more than 3 million Afghans living and
working in Pakistan3. Of these, one million
Afghans live in UNHCR-supported refugee
camps in the border areas of NWFP and
Balochistan and the remaining are scattered in
low-income settlements in the cities, mainly
Peshawar and Quetta, surviving on casual labour
under harsh conditions4. The largest concentration
in Sindh, estimated at 50,000, lives in a
refugee settlement at the outskirts of Karachi
off Super Highway, whereas more than 157,000
Afghans have left Karachi in recent years with
the assistance of UNHCR5.
The Afghans migrated in several waves starting
with the Soviet invasion in 1979 and are recognized
as refugees by the government due to border
affinity, shared ethnicity and geo-political
history. Around 300,000 Afghans entered
Pakistan subsequent to the 11 September 2001
event and the US-NATO intrusion in Afghanistan6.
Under a Tripartite Agreement signed in 2003
between the governments of Pakistan and
Afghanistan and the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees, UNHCR assisted over 2.7 million
Afghans to return home from Pakistan between
2002 and 20057. Despite repatriation of a significant
proportion it is estimated that a large
number will not return to Afghanistan due to several
reasons.
The Afghan refugees did not have any legal status
for more than two decades. Harassment of
Afghan refugees by the law enforcing agencies
escalated since 2004 with the advent of USbacked
military operation in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas. In August 2005 the
government decided to close the camps in the
semi-autonomous tribal area in NWFP for security
concerns. The announcement of the closures
of the camps, the measures to restrict the
movement of the refugees in Rawalpindi and
Islamabad and the proposed December 2006
plan to mine and fence the border increased the
anxiety and hardship of the refugees.
The National Database Registration Authority
(NADRA) began registering Afghan refugees for
the first time in October 2006. By December
2006, NADRA had registered 1.6 millions
Afghans through 160 centres and issued Proof
of Registration (PoR), or resident cards, with a
validity of three years8. Meanwhile, National
Aliens Registration Authority (NARA) had registered
16,740 Afghans in Karachi as aliens by
December 2006 and issued them the Alien
Registration Cards and Work Permit Cards.
With the exception of financially resourceful
refugees who bought property and businesses in
Pakistan and accessed legal documentation,
62 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Afghan Waste-Picker
"I am a native of Balgham, Afghanistan, I used to tend cattle
there. We owned 15 goats and 20 sheep. I have five
brothers who used to have a milk business. Our parents
have expired and amongst my siblings I am the youngest.
We were living in our country rather happily when Russia's
invasion destroyed the peace and fear and unrest took
over everything. Then we brothers tried to get out of the
country and with four of my brothers being married, we all
came to Peshawar, Pakistan, through the Torkham route.
We spent 12 years in Peshawar, where one of my brothers
was a drivers and the others were labourers. I, being
the youngest, did not work and ate for free. Then my
brothers asked me to work, and so I started working as
well. When I had a little bit saved up I thought why not go
to Karachi and seek better opportunities. I worked as a
laborer in Karachi for two years but then conditions got
worse and there was not enough stable work available.
One day I ran into some fellow Afghans in Lea Market and
I asked them what kind of work they did. They told me
about paper-picking and I decided to join. I collected scrap
for about a month. When the man who sorted the scrap
left the job one day, I asked the kabari if I could replace
him. He accepted me and I started making Rs. 1800 a
month. Two years later the kabari died and I had to manage
the whole business; gradually I became the new
owner. I used to think that the owner must be making a
slot of money but I discovered that Rs. 400 goes towards
paying bhatta to the police every month and the electricity
bill costs Rs. 150." Naseem Khan, 22 years, Lea
Market,
(Solid Waste Management, URC Karachi Series, 2001)
the majority of Afghan residing in the urban centres
and in the camps eke out a living through
daily wages either as construction labour, loaders,
vendors, fruit-sellers, hawkers, or as ragpickers.
The majority of Afghan men and children
living in katchi abadis in urban centres earn
their living through the hazardous occupation of
picking, sorting and recycling of solid waste.
According to the Urban Resource Centre study,
'the activity is carried out by 21,000 waste-pickers
most of whom are young Afghan boys'9.
The Afghans are resented by the local population
for keeping the labour wages depressed and
for allegedly burdening the fragile resource
base.
The Aliens: Bengalis and other
Nationalities
According to official data there are 3.35 million
illegal immigrants in Pakistan10. Though the
breakup of registered nationalities at NARA
includes Afghans, it practically excludes the
Afghan refugee population numbered at 3 million
(of them 1.5 million registered by NADRA).
The NARA which began registering immigrants
in 2002 had registered 94,552 migrants by the
end of December, with Bangladeshis numbering
at 73,107 out of the 76 nationalities registered
by NADRA. The majority of migrant workers are
concentrated in Karachi.
According to official estimates, there were about
1100,000 Bengalis and 200,000 Burmese living
in Karachi, the two largest migrant communities
in the country following Afghan refugees. Most
of the Bengalis migrated to Pakistan during the
mid 1970s and 1980s due to politico-economic
turmoil in the newly established Bangladesh.
The Burmese had emigrated earlier in the late
1960s and early 1970s due to hostile environment
against Muslims in Burma.
Most of the Bengali immigrants in Karachi live in
low-income settlements deprived of adequate
public services and decent living conditions (i.e.
Ziaul Haq Colony, Musa Colony, Machchar
Colony, and Godhra) and are engaged in the fish-
63 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Agriculture: Key Elements of the
Bonded Labour Relationship
The bonded labour relationship in the agriculture
sector in Sindh contains all the elements
of exploitation that can potentially characterize
such a relationship: long-term and heavy
indebtedness; dependence on the employer
for subsistence needs and services; restrictions
on movement; violence or threats of violence;
non-payment or excessively low wages;
unpaid or obligatory labour of family members.
The inequality of negotiating position is another
key element of the tenancy contract. One
party is illiterate and has little or no bargaining
power, little say in maintaining accounts and
limited or no recourse to any official or informal
enforcement mechanisms. The other
party (or his representative) apportions the
share of the agriculture production to the hari
and transacts all business dealings, including
the purchase of inputs, sale of produce and
maintenance of accounts. The hari is often
unaware of the net amount he owes the zamidar
or is owed by him. Often the hari is not
given his entire share of the produce at the
time of the harvest but is gradually given it
over the year. The landlord adopts this strategy
unilaterally, partly to retain the hari and partly
to regulate expenditures by the hari who is
often likely to use his share immediately and
then demand and additional loan. This gradual
release of his legitimate share of the agricultural
produce further weakens the hari's position.
The hari's entire family is expected to provide
labour, including women and children. The
field study confirmed the contention that
women are the worst sufferers of the bondage
system. Women rise early in the morning to
finish household chores and then work actively
in the field. Compared to women from free
households, hari women have higher fertility
rates, due to lack of acces to family planning
and health services, and poor health indicators.
Children are expected to undertake
chores around the farm, (e.g., graze animals,
collect water and firewood, etc.). when
required, women also undertake work in the
zamindar's household. The notion that the
zamindars and their sons sexually abuse the
women of tenant families is common. Indeed,
most of the families seeking refuge in the
camps in Hyderabad indicated that this was a
principal reason for their decision to flee
bondage. Such abuse is often exacerbated by
violence or its threat.
—Bonded Labour in Agriculture: A Rapid Assessment in
Sindh and Balochistan, Special Action Programme to
Combat Forced Labour
eries, garments, carpet weaving, and homebased
manufacturing or work as cooks, domestic
servants or petty shop keepers.
Bonded Labour
Prevalence of forced labour arrangements—
where the individual/family works and lives
under debt bondage and conditions pre-determined
by the employer—is high in agriculture
and brick kiln sectors. Forced labour also afflict
mining and quarrying, carpet weaving and
domestic work but the cases are seldom highlighted
due to isolated and atomized nature of
work undertaken by the individual and not necessarily
by the entire family.
Despite promulgation of the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act 1992 (followed by the
1995 Rules), and the mechanisms put in place
under the National Policy and Plan of Action for
the Abolition of Bonded Labour and
Rehabilitation of Freed Bonded Labourers 2001,
bonded labour remains widespread. Poor implementation
of law and administrative procedures,
and lack of political will of the state functionaries
are cited as some of the reasons for
continuation of this abusive, inhuman form of
labour relations.
The overwhelming majority of bonded labour in
the province of Sindh belongs to the low-caste
Hindu communities. In other provinces low-caste
Muslims and Christians comprise the majority of
bonded labour. In a sample survey of 1000
households of released haris in camps in and
around Hyderabad, Sindh, 843 households were
Hindus11.
Interventions
The law, though poorly implemented and confined
to 'debt bondage rather than the broader
category of force labour'12, has played a pivotal
role in interventions against bonded labour.
Data of the last 15 years (1995-2005) reveal
that a total of 8,350 bonded laborers were
released throughout the country . The PILER
research further indicates that the majority of
bonded labourers (5,166) were freed by the joint
efforts of the NGOs, judiciary and administration,
whereas 563 were released through administrative
intervention and 722 got their freedom
through a combined judicial and administrative
intervention13.
Rehabilitation of laborers freed from bondage
remains an issue. The released workers take
64 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Bonded Labour in Brick Kiln
Once any family member has worked as kiln
labour for a while, the family can work nowhere
else at their own discretion. If the person has
separate khata, the exit option can be exercised
if the debt is accepted by other family
members and they appear capable of redeeming
the debt through their own labour…
Debts are generally not forgiven upon incapacitation
or death. A father or brother must
accept the debt of a son or brother; a woman
must assume the debt of a husband; and a
male child must accept the debt of a father…
Kilns can close for short periods "after a season"
or for other reasons. One aspect of
bondage is permission or refusal to work elsewhere
temporarily. Discretion rests entirely
with the kiln-owner, and is available to "safe"
labour. Other indebted labour must stay onsite,
subsisting on further loans by the owner.
Measured as the intensity and frequency of violence,
severity of bondage was clearly observed
to be low. One can only speculate why.
Perhaps, the risk of court action in a high profile
sector is a deterrent. Or more likely, owners
consider violence as counter-productive as
labour is easily available in a time of widespread
unemployment and a stagnant construction
sector. Owners may also realize that
the costs or slacking by demoralized labour
can be very high.
Of grave concern are the recent and continuing
cases of kiln workers selling a kidney to
redeem large debts. These cases were encountered
in Northern Punjab, but news reports
indicate that they also occur in other places in
Punjab. In one family, it was a middle-aged
man (as the single male adult labour); in another,
it was a juvenile daughter-in-law (orphaned,
but married into a large family) who had used
a local hospital. In a third family, a juvenile
daughter (from a family that had adult brothers
in kiln labour) had gone to Lahore to arrange
the sale of her kidney. Clearly, debt bondage
can create immense psychological desperation
that remains veiled in the easier focus on physical
violence.
Unfree labour in Pakistan: Work, Debt and Bondage in
Brick Kilns, PILER-ILO, 2004
refuge in camps, or temporary shelters, provided
by a number of NGOs, notably Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan, National Rurual
Support Programme and Green Rural
Development Organisation. At present there are
several camps in and around Hyderabad (i.e.,
Sikanadarbad, Hosri, Udero Lal, Chaudhry Farm
Baba Salahuddin, Zeal Pak, and Qadir Nagar)
providing shelter to estimated 10,000 of freed
labour from different provinces14.
Unemployment and underemployment is high in
the camps and access to basic facilities minimal.
Many find physically strenuous, low-paid
work on daily wages in nearby cotton ginning
factories, or seasonal work in sugar cane/cotton
fields or end up as scavengers in solid waste
management business. The NGOs, i.e. GRDO,
help them access national identity cards, raise
funds and facilitate self-help to construct modest
abodes, while NRSP extends micro-credit,
health, low-cost housing and educational facilities.
The Bonded Labour Fund created by the state in
2000 to be used for rehabilitation of freed
labour remained largely unutilized. In
September 2005, the Ministry of Labour,
Manpower and Oversea Pakistanis approved
three projects under the Bonded Labour Fund for
the provision of low cost housing and legal aid to
the freed labour living in the camps15. In April
2006, it was reported that Legal Aid Service
Units had been set up under the Bonded Labour
Fund and a toll free help line established at district
level for the bonded labour to have rapid
access to legal services16.
A National Coalition against Bonded Labour was
formed by civil society organizations during
2005 and formally launched in February 2006,
to jointly work for elimination of bonded labour.
PILER is a key member of the coalition.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
(HRCP) was the first civil society organization to
effectively intervene in the late 1980s through
the formation of its Task Force on Bonded
Labour based in Hyderabad. The HRCP is reporting
on bonded labour since the year 1990 in its
annual report.
However, there is no comprehensive database
and unified mechanism of monitoring and documentation
of bonded labour at the national
level.
Bonded Labour in Agriculture
Official figures indicate 1.5 million agricultural
households living under debt17. Unofficial
sources estimate 1.7 million haris live under
debt bondage18. Bonded labour is most prevalent
among sharecroppers in parts of Sindh and
Punjab provinces.
The HRCP recorded release of 988 haris during
2006, mainly from districts Mirpurkhas and
Sanghar. Of them the majority, 986, escaped on
their own (and later facilitated by NGOs) and
only 12 of the released haris were freed by the
district administration19. According to national
media20 reports, majority of the freed labour
belonged to the Hindu Bheel community. In the
cases reported in the media, the landlords were
named but there was no news of any action
taken against them.
After the Supreme Court suo moto action, an
interim challan against the landlord Abdul
Rehman Marri was submitted in May 2006 with
an order to arrest him and recover Manu Bheel's
nine family members abducted in 1998 by the
accused. His pre-arrest bail was cancelled and
court ordered to forfeit his property. The
accused, absconding for eight years courted
arrest in July. The police had not succeeded in
recovering Manu Bheel's family members by the
end of 2006.
The HRCP notes that the 2002 ruling of the
Sindh High Court to settle disputes between the
landlords and haris over debt under the Sindh
65 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Child Labour in Agriculture
Of nearly 218 million children engaged in
child labor around the world, the vast majority—
69 percent, or some 150 million—are
working in agriculture. Child agricultural workers
frequently work for long hours in scorching
heat, haul heavy loads of produce, are
exposed to toxic pesticides, and suffer high
rates of injury from sharp knives and other
dangerous tools. Their work is grueling and
harsh, violating their rights to health, education,
and protection from work that is hazardous
or exploitative.
According to the ILO's new report on child
labor, the number of children working in agriculture
is nearly ten times that of children
involved in factory work such as garment
manufacturing, carpet-weaving, or soccer-ball
stitching.
Tenancy Act 1950 has led to decrease in the
number of releases of bonded labour21. The ruling
had dismissed petitions from 94 haris seeking
freedom from bondage. The HRCP' petition
filed against the ruling in 2002 is still pending
before the Supreme Court.
Bonded Labour in Brick Kilns
Bonded labour is widespread in estimated
5,000 brick kilns in Punjab and around 1,000
kilns in the remaining three provinces22. Most of
the brick kilns owners evade registration of their
establishments under law to deprive workers of
safeguards and legal rights. Greater awareness
of denial of rights exists among brick kiln workers
as a result of judicial intervention (i.e.
Supreme Court 1989 decision, 1992 Act).
Upholding of the 1992 Act by the Federal Shariat
Court in November 2005 has given further impetus
to the brick kiln workers and civil society
actors to pursue implementation of the law (See
Chapter 5 for details).
The HRCP recorded release of 642 bonded
labourers from the kilns in Hafizabad, Sialkot,
Lahore, Sharaqpur, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura
and Mandi Bahauddin by the Lahore High Court
during January to August 200523. During 2006,
the media24 reported release of 329 brick kiln
workers (mostly in Punjab) in different cases
facilitated by labour and human rights activists
and sensitized judiciary.
An ugly form of exploitation—removal and sale
of kidneys of bonded labour—continued in 2006.
Two brick kiln workers of Lahore were deprived
of their kidneys through surgery performed without
their knowledge or consent25.
Child Labour
Though child labour is on the decline globally26,
it has shown an increasing trend in Pakistan in
the last decade. The total number of children
aged 10-14 years engaged in productive activities
has risen from 2.12 million in 1996-97 to
3.06 million in 2005-0627. Labour force participation
rate in the age group 10-14 has also
jumped during this period from 12.8 percent to
15.2 percent28. The increase in child labour is
linked to informalisation and the expanding lowpaid,
unprotected, home-based work that does
not generate decent income and compel adults
to supplement the household income through
child labour. Another key factor related to child
labour is lack of schooling. Over 6.4 million children
are reported to be out of school in
Pakistan29.
Child labour was cited as one of the reasonsbesides
several other violations of labour lawsby
the Nike Inc. for cancellation of contract with
a Sialkot-based hand-stitched soccer ball manufacturing
company in November 2006. Nike Inc.
had suspected use of child labour at the homebased
work-centres in peripheral areas of
Sialkot permitted by Nike for limited stitching.
The move rendered 4000 workers jobless and
affected several thousand families.
Pakistan ratified the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child in 1990 and the ILO
Convention on the Worst Form of Child Labour
(N0.182) in 2001. The ILO Minimum Age
Convention (No.138) was finally ratified by the
government in November 2006.
According to an ILO survey undertaken in 2006,
66 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Child Labour and Segmented
Labour Market
The 'nimble finger' factor argument has been used to contend
that employers in certain industries prefer child
labour hands as they are believed to be more dexterous
and more productive. Studies conducted by the ILO, however,
have argued that the prevalence of specific skills or
specific dexterity does not cut much ice. In the industries
for which this argument is being put forth, such as carpet
weaving, diamond polishing and stitching of sports
goods, adults and children work side by side. When some
of the tasks are performed exclusively by children, the
skills required are so minimal that child labour is clearly
replaceable by (male or female) adult labour. Profit margins
would drop only marginally if child labour were to be
replaced by adult labour.
In the carpet and bangle industry, the difference in the
production costs between adult labour and cheaper child
labour has been calculated to be lower than 5 per cent.
Under conditions of an excess supply of labour, which is
usually the case in child labour-prone areas, one should
expect employers to employ adults rather than children.
The downward pressure on wages, which is bound to
occur in an environment of a weak or non-existent collective
bargaining power and of an abundant supply of
(adult) labour, would ultimately lower adult wages to a
level that is barely above the level of child wages.
Since this has not happened, the suggestion is that adult
labourers, after all, do have a bargaining power, which
keeps their wages and working conditions at somewhat
higher levels than those for child labourers.
---G.K. Lieten, Child Labour and Poverty: The Poverty of Analysis
there were 5,800 children working in Sialkot's
surgical instrument industry—89 per cent as full
time and the remaining 11 per cent part time
while attending the school. The children's average
work time is nine hours a day and their
monthly income ranges between Rs780 and
Rs1,733 per month30.
The Labour Department, NWFP, noted in
December 2006 that excluding the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas, the province has one
million child labourers. In a study undertaken in
late 2005 by the Society for Empowering Human
Resource in collaboration with Save the Children
Sweden, child labour was found in Balochistan
coal mines. In another survey about 10,000 children
were found working in automobile garages
in Faislabad31. The rapid assessment studies
undertaken by the Ministry of Labour in collaboration
with ILO in 2004 had indicated high preva -
lence of child labour in the sectors of brick kilns,
carpets, mining, glass bangles and domestic survices-
the sectors afflicted with bonded labour.
Efforts to combat child labour continued by the
state—with the assistance of the ILO—and the
civil society organizations. The list of 29 occupations
declared hazardous for children under the
Employment of Children Act 1991 was revised
and notified in December 2006. Under the
revised list 34 occupations and work processes
are now banned for child labour.
The ILO International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) initiated in
Pakistan in 1994 continued in 2006. The ILOIPEC
National Time Bound Program is supporting
the government to eliminate the Worst Form
of Child Labour (WFCL) in accordance with ILO
Convention 182. The time bound programme in
the glass bangle sector (Hyderabad), deep sea
fishing (Gwadar), and the tanneries (Kasur) were
launched in 200532. The programme in the ragpicking
was initiated in April 200633 and in surgical
instruments (Sialkot) in May 200634.
Another ILO-IPEC initiative for children who had
worked earlier as foot ball stitchers in Sialkot
was initiated in June 2006 in collaboration with
the Federation of International Football
Association.
The first ever nation national survey on child
labour was carried out by the Federal Bureau of
Statistics with the ILO support in 1996. The second
national survey, planned by FBS in 2003-04,
and expected to be launched in 2006 was not
initiated during the year. The National Policy and
the Plan of Action to Combat Child Labour formulated
in 2000 remains to implemented by
the provincial governments.
67 Labour Rights in Pakistan
68 Labour Rights in Pakistan
he institutions mandated to preserve
and promote labour interests and regulate
labour arrangements either by customary
collective practices (trade
unions/labour organizations/bilateral institutions)
or by law (state bodies) play a crucial role
in determining the status of workers. The following
section presents a brief overview.
Formal Sector Labour Organisations
Trade Unions
Trade unions are associations of workers formed
and registered under Industrial Relations
Ordinance under several restrictive conditions.
Foremost is the condition that restricts its membership
only to workers actually employed in the
establishment or the industry concerned though
it allows one-fourth of its executive body members
to be from outside the establishment.
Under the law trade union cannot operate unless
it has been certified as Collective Bargaining
Agent. The law also restricts registration of sector-
based trade unions: workers of a particular
sector, i.e. textile, employed at different establishments
in different locations cannot form a
single union.
The number and strength of the trade unions
have diminished considerably over the years due
to increasingly restrictive legislation imposed by
the state. The reasons for weak and ineffective
trade unionism—aside state intervention—listed
by analysts, include internal fragmentation, lack
of educated cadre and committed leadership,
lack of input from enlightened elements of civil
society, ethnic and sectarian divide in society,
and globalization of economy .
Trade unionism, limited to the formal sector, has
not been able to achieve the unifying force to
give it a sense of direction and endow it with
political power. It has been further weakened by
the process of privatization since the last
decade. Unable to challenge privatization, the
public sector unions, represented by the All
Pakistan State Employee Workers' Action
Committee, negotiated an agreement with the
Minister of Manpower in 1991 securing some
concessions in the privatized enterprises. The
opportunity to challenge and resist the IRO 2002
as a formidable unified force was also lost by the
trade unions. The continuing resistance put up
by the trade unions through advocacy against
the IRO 2002 at conferences, seminars, rallies
and May Days commemorations has not made
any impact.
Overview of Trade Unionism
At the time of the Partition in 1947 there were
55 registered trade unions in Sindh and Punjab,
and 30 in East Pakistan, with around a total of
95,000 members, less than one-third of the
total number of workers. Most of the trade
unions were in the railways, post and telegraph
departments, dockyards and cotton mills.
The unions affiliated with All India Trade Union
Congress (affiliated to Communist Party of
India) and Indian Federation of Labour (social
reformists) formed the Pakistan Trade Union
Federation (PTUF) and Pakistan Labour
Federation (PLF) respectively. Though the unions
that organized initially in Pakistan were political
party-allied (PTUF allied with Communist Party
of Pakistan), the '…labour occupied no part of
the imagined community of the Muslim
League…thus, the organized workers in
Pakistan, unlike India, were not incorporated in
post-independence development strategies and
national ideologies or by Pakistani political parties'
1.
Due to exclusion from the mainstream political
and development discourse, demographic and
social disruption of partition, and little industrialization
in the areas, labour movement in
Pakistan began as a weak force though workers
69 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Labour Institutions
T
continue to form unions to struggle against
unjust wages, poor working conditions and antilabour
legislation.
The All Pakistan Confederation of Labour
(APCOL), created by the state in 1950 to control
unionism, undermined the labour movement.
The unions who resisted to affiliate with APCOL
were harassed and suppressed. In 1951, the
state implicated and imprisoned general secretary
of PTUF (Faiz Ahmad Faiz) in the Rawalpindi
Conspiracy Case. With the ban on Communist
Party in 1954, the PTUF was made ineffective.
The labour struggle, however, gained momentum
prior to the imposition of the first martial
law. The workers' protests against low wages
and anti-union attitudes of employers led by
shop-floor leaders, marginalized the APCOL2.
The APCOL ceased to exist in 1962 and out of it
three splinter groups emerged-Pakistan
National Federation of Trade Unions (PNFTU), All
Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions (APFTU)3
and All Pakistan Federation of Labour (APFOL)
which got affiliated with the International
Confederation of free Trade Unions (ICFTU). The
ICFTU had expressed concern at this division and
wanted affiliation with one representative body4.
The three bodies finally decided to come together
under the umbrella of Pakistan Workers
Federation in July 1994 but the actual merger
took place in 20045. The federations remain
affiliated in their individual capacities with the
International Trade Unions Confederation
(ITUC)6.
Three of the federations with socialist-leftist
leanings but independent of political party affiliations—
Pakistan Trade Union Federation (PTUF),
All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF) and
All Pakistan Trade Union Organization (APTUO)—
are affiliated with the World Federation of Trade
Unions, while All Pakistan Trade Union Congress
(APTUC) has affiliation with the World
Confederation of Labour. The Muttahida Labour
Federation is not affiliated with any international
body. In 1995 eight major labour federations
formed the Pakistan Workers Confederation.
All these federations, though differ in their origin
and ideologies, are similar'…for their complete
lack of democratic and participatory norms.
There is hardly any process by which leaders can
be held accountable to the rank and file, be it in
polity matters or financial affairs'7.
Another category of trade unions is of those affiliated
with national political parties. National
Labour Front, sponsored by Jamat-e-Islami,
People's Labour Bureau of Pakistan People's
Party, labour wing of Pakistan Muslim League
and Pukhtun Labour Front of the Awami
National Party. Trade unionism is also fractured
through ethnicity line. Labour Division of MQM,
labour wings of Jiay Sindh Movement and Sindh
Awami Tehrik, and Balochistan Labour
Federation focus only on workers of respective
ethnicity8.
Informal Sector Workers'
Organizations
As formation and registration of trade unions
under the IRO 2002 is restricted to minuscule
formal sector labor force, workers in the ever
expanding informal economy form and register
associations and organizations mainly under the
Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies (Registration
and Control) Ordinance 1961. Established on
the pattern of traditional community-based, voluntary
organizations, the workers' associations
have come to play an important role in the
labour movement. From hawkers and vendors to
workers in small scale manufacturing and services
sectors, the workers come together to pursue
collective interests as workers and citizens.
Notable in terms of activism and struggles are
the workers' organizations in brick kiln, power
looms, glass bangles and the fisheries sectors
Transport is another sector where workers have
united in different associations and unions (See
Box). The most powerful struggle to emerge in
the current decade is of agricultural workers
under umbrella of Anjuman Mazarain Punjab
which is not registered under any Ordinance or
Act.
State Institutions
At the federal level, the Ministry of Labor,
Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis is responsible
for labour and employment policy formulation,
legislation, administration and implementation.
Labor and employment are the subjects
listed under the concurrent legislative list and
the provincial governments are also mandated
to formulate policies on their own. The Federal
Ministry oversees 14 departments (related to
labour welfare, human resource development
and labour judiciary).
The Ministry of Labour is often bypassed when it
comes to legislation. The recent example is the
labour law changes through Finance Act 2006
formulated by the Finance Ministry. Currently the
70 Labour Rights in Pakistan
state is pursuing anti-workers policies both at
the federal and provincial level. Punjab
Industrial Policy 2003 has eliminated inspection
of industries/workplaces by labour inspectors in
violation of ILO convention 81 ratified by
Pakistan.
State Labour Welfare Institutions
Under Article 38 (b) and (e) of the Constitution,
the state is to provide "…for all persons
employed in the service of Pakistan or otherwise,
social security by compulsory social insurance
or other means; provide basic necessities
of life such as food, clothing, housing, education
and medical relief, for all such citizens, irrespective
of sex, creed, caste, or race, as are permanently
or temporarily unable to earn their livelihood
on account of infirmity, sickness or unemployment…"
The State began to take measures
relating to welfare of workers in reaction to the
growing labour discontent in the 1960s. Since
then a number of schemes and institutions have
been put in place but their scope, extent and
effectiveness remain limited. Some of the
important labour welfare institutions are listed
below:
Employee Social Security Institution, established
under the Provincial Employees Social Security
Ordinance, 1965, is financed through a levy of 7
per cent of the wages of the workers up to
Rs.5,000 payable by the employers of industrial
and commercial establishments employing five
or more workers. The registered workers are
entitled to access medical facilities through a
network of hospitals and dispensaries in the
provinces. Cash benefits include sickness, injury,
and maternity benefits, disablement gratuity
and pension, and death grant.
The Punjab Employees Social Security
Institution had registered about 550,000 workers
while the Sindh Employees Social Security
Institution had 345,000 workers9 under its cover
by the end of 2005. The NWFP Employees Social
Security Institution had reported 40,000 registered
workers and the Balochistan ESSI had only
8,581 beneficiaries in 1999. The bulk of the
institution's fund goes in to medical facilities.
According to official sources, the Sindh Social
Security Institution spent 70 per cent of its funds
on medical facilities in the year 200610.
The coverage of social security institutions
remains abysmally low—less than 3 per cent of
the total labour force in the organised sector11.
The facilities are grossly inadequate even for
covered workers. Only 13 doctors catered to
25,000 industrial workers in Sialkot and
Narowal districts in 200612.
The Workers' Welfare Fund established in
1971—mainly to provide housing for workers—is
financed through 2 per cent levy from employers
under the WWF Ordinance, 1971, and surplus
amount from the Workers' Participation Fund
under the Companies' Profits (Workers
Participation) Act, 1968.
The collected revenue goes to the Federal
Consolidated Fund and transferred later through
budgetary allocation to the Workers' Welfare
Fund under the Ministry of Labour. This result in
restricted transfer and the bulk of the revenue
remains static with the Finance Ministry. Even
the amount that reaches the WWF is not utilized
fully. The WWF had Rs. 13.65 5 billion in its fund
by November 2005 and of this amount less than
five per cent is actually spent on workers' welfare
schemes13. The Fund resources, due to centralization,
corruption and lack of political will to
benefit the workers, goes into dubious activities,
else are pocketed by fake beneficiaries, as is the
case with labour housing complexes supposedly
built for workers in various cities.
In June 2006, the grant under the Workers
Welfare Fund (WWF) for worker's daughter's, or
woman worker's own marriage was enhanced
from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 50,000. The grant to
heirs in case of the death of a worker was
increased to Rs 200,000 and the monthly scholarship
for workers' children was raised to Rs
1,000.
However, the coverage of the Fund remains
extremely low and among those workers who
are covered, many are not aware of the current
benefits and procedural mechanisms to gain
access. Many of the informal sector units avoid
registration of their workers to evade contribution.
Employees Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI):
The EOBI, established in 1976 as a federal institution
to provide for old age pension and related
benefits to only a small fraction of the country's
working population, does not achieve full compliance
even within this population. Its coverage
has been further shrunk by the amendment in
the EOBI Act under the Finance Act 2006 limiting
its area of applicability to establishments
employing more than 20 workers instead of 10
as it previously did.
71 Labour Rights in Pakistan
In a 2006 report the EOBI was viewed by its
stakeholders inside and outside government as
'…deeply flawed organization that was not delivering
benefits to those for whom contributions
had been paid'14.
The EOBI is financed through a levy of 6 percent
paid by employers on worker's minimum wages
and one percent contribution by workers. The
number of insured persons registered, by the
end of 2005—according to EOBI- was 2.4 million
while the number of active insured persons was
1.4 million. The disparity between the number of
workers on whose behalf contributions are collected
and the number of records for active beneficiaries
reflects poor efforts to improve the
already insured records and to add new insured
to the rolls. The disparity results in large annual
accumulation of forfeitures. 'The current disjoint
at the EOBI,' the report says, 'between those for
whom contributions have been paid and those
for whom records exist is, to say the least, very
troublesome from both social perspective and
financial accountability perspective.'15 The
report notes a high administrative cost ratio of
25 per cent in EOBI. There have been frequent
allegations of corruption and leakages in disbursement
of money. In 2006 financial losses of
over Rs 2.2 billion were detected in the audits of
EOBI16.
State Tripartite Institutional
Arrangements
The State recognizes, at theoretical level, that
tripartism—consultation among workers,
employers, state machinery—plays a crucial role
in promoting harmonious industrial relations.
The institutional arrangements for tripartism in
place in Pakistan include:
? Pakistan Tripartite Labour Conference;
? Standing Labour Committee;
? Labour Advisory Board;
? National Committee on the Rights of the
Child;
? Minimum Wage Council;
? National Steering Committee on Bonded
Labour.
The State does include the relevant stakeholders
in tripartite consultations facilitated by it.
However, the frequency of consultation is irregular
and sporadic. Besides, these institutional
arrangements are not legally empowered to play
any role in the enforcement of recommendations
that come out of consultations. The recommendations
are generally over ruled by different
ministries. Pakistan Tripartite Labour
Conference 2001 recommended to delete section
27-B in the Banking Companies Ordinance
as it is in conflict with the ILO Convention 87.
This recommendation was rejected by the
Ministry of Finance. The recommendation to
include agriculture sector under the ambit of
labour laws was rejected by the Government of
Punjab, Agriculture Department17.
Labour Judiciary
Power and jurisdiction of labour judicial bodies—
Labour Courts at the provincial level and the
National Industrial Relations Commission and
Federal Services Tribunal at the federal level—
stand considerably curtailed under restrictive
labour legislation and the IRO 2002.
This legal position was affirmed by the Supreme
Court in a judgment in January 2006 on 600
appeals filed by the employees of several public
sector corporations (i.e. Pakistan Railways,
WAPDA, Sui Southern Gas Company, National
Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan International Airlines
Corporation, State Life Insurance, United Bank
Limited, Pakistan Telecommunication
Company) against a decision of the Federal
Service Tribunal that rejected their petitions for
rights and entitlements as civil servants. The
Supreme Court held that the appellants were
not civil servants as defined in the 1997 amended
Section 2-1(b) of the Civil Servants Act,
197318.
Hundreds of public sector employees whose
petitions were rejected in recent years by the
labour courts, moved the high courts seeking
redressal of grievances. After the abolition of
Labour Appellate Tribunal under IRO 2002, the
high courts are empowered under Article 48 of
the IRO 2002 to adjudicate appeals—through
appellate benches—of aggrieved workers
against the decision of the labour courts. Labour
courts have jurisdiction under Industrial
Relations 2002, West Pakistan Industrial &
Commercial Establishment (Standing
Ordinance) 1968 and appellate jurisdiction
under the Payment of Wages Act 1936.
The IRO 2002 has also barred
sacked/retrenched workers to seek relief from
the National Industrial Relations Commission
(NIRC). Previously the workers could file a case
with the NIRC and remain in the job until adjudication
of their claims.
Besides limited jurisdiction and power, labour
72 Labour Rights in Pakistan
judiciary is marred with serious issues of governance.
According to a survey of labour courts in
Karachi, Sukkur, Lahore, Faisalabad, Peshawar
and Quetta—carried out by PILER in 2005—on
average the judges were not adjudicating even
one case per day19. Most courts suffer from staff
shortage, poor equipment, and inadequate physical
infrastructure. Judges conduct hearings and
deliver decisions in their chambers rather in
open courts, in violation of section 47 of IRO
2002. The courts usually take 2-5 years to
decide the cases, contravening sub-section 3 of
section 46, IRO 2002, which stipulates that the
labour court "…shall give a decision within seven
days from the date of the matter being brought
before it…"
The session and district judges are appointed as
presiding officers to the labour courts but often
they are assigned additional charges. The
Presiding officers are frequently transferred.
Often the posts remain vacant.
.
The office of the Federal Services Tribunal
remained without a chairman for several
months in early 2005 when the former Sindh
High Court judge relinquished charge on completion
of his tenure20. During this period, the
Tribunal in Islamabad and its benches in Lahore
and Karachi became dysfunctional and the work
on 15,000 pending cases and incoming new
cases remained suspended.
Workers-Employers Bilateral Council of
Pakistan (WEBCOP)
Trade liberalization in recent years has led to
realization by industrialists that the competitive
edge in production is achieved only through
skilled, stable and empowered workforce. In
view of the emerging need for social dialogue
among stakeholders, the formal sector employers
took the lead in the formation of a bilateral
institution of employers and workers in Pakistan
in 2000.
The Workers Employers Bilateral Council of
Pakistan (WEBCOP) represents employers' federation
and all major trade union federations
and confederations, and aims to '…to meet the
challenges of change to ensure industrial
growth, employment, prosperity, joy and happiness
with equal opportunity to all, respecting
each other's needs…'21. The initiative was
acknowledged by the ILO as an effective move
'…to overcome conflict and nurture cooperative
means of addressing industrial problems in the
face of globalization.'22
The MoU of the Council lists 17 objectives and of
these only two (d & g) refer to workers rights and
benefits. The emphasis is on 'employment generation',
'speedy industrialisation' and 'sound
industrial relations'23. Over the years the WEBCOB
has not proved itself of any real consequence
to workers as according to a media
report WEBCOP '…had been so structured as to
give a greater leverage to the employers' representatives'
24.
The WEBCOP provides a platform for dialogue
on labour legislation, among other issues. The
Trade Union Action Committee and the WEBCOP
have suggested changes to the IRO 2002 and
are lobbying with state officials for the adoption
of the new draft. The WEBCOP successfully liaise
with the Skill Development Council to arrange
trainings for skill enhancement of workers of the
formal sector units.
73 Labour Rights in Pakistan
The road transport workers have been organizing themselves
in to groups since late 1970s on the pattern of
community-based, non-profit organizations. The workers
involved with specific modes of transport (truck, bus,
taxi, rickshaw, donkey-carts, etc.) mobilize co-workers
locally around issues confronted in daily work routine.
Dynamic leadership-comprising activists-workers who
are well-informed on governance issues, national and
provincial legislation and ground realities, have better
communications/negotiation skills and networking with
resource organizations/government offices-plays an
important role in organizations that have collective bargaining
status.
Though the transport workers' networks, or associations,
are membership-based, they vary in size, longevity, institutionality,
and the degree of success. The active associations
are those that adhere to the constitution, hold regular
elections, stick to their objectives, interact with other
civil society organizations and learn strategic tactics to
deal and dialogue with other stakeholders. By 2005, all
major, and most of the intermediary, cities have had
each a number of transport workers' associations or
unions. In the city of Karachi there are numerous informal
sector associations in the transport sector, representing
informal transport workers/operators, who
"…not only act as a powerful bargaining force but in case
of riots in the city, they can use their 'muscle' to defend
their interests". The unions/federations with larger
membership have recognition and credibility and their
office bearers are invited by relevant state departments
for dialogue and consultation.
Labour Organization in Road Transport Sector
The WEBCOP—jointly with the Alliance Against
Sexual Harassment—helps promote adoption of
the Code of Conduct for Gender Justice at the
Workplace by formal sector units and corporations
and confers Recognition Award for Gender-
Sensitive Management who follow the Code. ?
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Introduction
1. ILO Report, Decent Work
2. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, 1999, Oxford University Press, Delhi.
3. Medium Term Development Framework, 2005-10, Planning Commission, Government of
Pakistan.
4. Annual Report 2005, Privatization Commisssion, Government of Pakistan, http//www.pri
vatisation.gov.pk
5. Source: http//www.privatisation.gov.pk
6. Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2005.
7. State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report 2005.
8. Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2004-05.
9. Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2005-06.
10. Ibid.
11. Source: Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2005-06.
12. Younis Iqbal, General Secretary Anjuman-i-Mazarain Punjab, in an interview.
Labour Legislation and Policy
1. Labour Inspection Policy (Second Draft), Labour and Manpower Division, Nov. 2005.
2. ILO NATLEX, http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex
3. Report of the Commission for Consolidation, Simplification and Rationalization of Labour
Laws, Labour Division, GoP, September 2000.
4. Ibid.
5. Draft Employment and Services Contract Bill 2006, http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/
divisions/labourdivision/media/Draft_Employment_and_Service_Conditions
_Bill_2006.doc.
6. Federal Court Act Bill 2005, Policy Dialogues, LEAD Pakistan
http://www.lead.org.pk/all_attachl2/SHD/Paper%20on%20Federal%20Courts%
20Act%202004.
7. Establishment of the Federal Court, Report No. 68, www.ljcp.gov.pk/reports/Rep%
2068.doc
8. Daily Dawn 25 July 2005.
9. IRO 2002.
Status of Labour
1. Source: Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06.
2. Labour Force Survey 2005-06.
3. Source: Labour Force Surveys 2003-04 & 2005-06.
4. Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06, Economic Advisor's Wing, Finance Division, GoP,
Islamabad.
5. Ibid.
6. Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2005-06.
7. Source: Ibid.
8. Pakistan Agricultural Census 2000.
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
Notes
9. Household Integrated Economic Survey 2004-05, http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/fbs
10. Ibid.
11. Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06.
12. http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters/02-Agriculture.PDF
13. http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/PAK/BODY.HTM
14. Labour Force Survey 1990-991
15. Working Conditions of the Agricultural Labour in Punjab, A Survey Report, 2002, National
Commission for Justice and Peace
16. Are Work Conditions Decent? A Rapid Assessment Survey, 2002, PILER.
17. PILER Study.
18. According to Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06, 23.9 per cent, or 36.45 million
population living below the poverty line in 2004-05.
19. M. Javed Iqbal, Contractualisation of Formal Labour in South Asia: A Case Study of
Pakistan, International Journal of South Asian Affairs, vol. 21, No.1, Jan 2006
20. Abdur Razzaq, President Mutehida Labour Union Swat, in his presentation in the National
Convention for Textile Sector Workers, 1-2 Sept. 2005, at PILER Centre, Karachi.
21. Mazdoor Huqooq, Food Edition, Vol. 1, Issue N.27, 18-24 June, 2005, PILER
22. Mazdoor Huqooq, Construction Edition, Vol. 1, Issue 22, May 7-15, 2005.
23. Mazdoor Huqooq, Construction Edition, Vol. 1, Issue N.18, April 9-15, 2005, PILER.
24. Labour Protection Policy 2005, 3rd Draft, Ministry of Labour, Manpower and Overseas
Pakistanis, Islamabad.
25. Pakistan Labour Force Survey Oct-Dec. 2005.
26. Ibid.
27. Are Working Conditions Decent? Rapid Assessment Survey 2002, PILER.
28. Pakistan Statistical year Book 2005
29. Source: Ibid.
30. Social Protection, 2003 Report, ILO.
31. Ibid.
32. Drèze, J. and Sen, A. 1991. 'Public action for social security: Foundations and strategy', in
E. Ahmad, J. Drèze, J. Hills and A. Sen (eds.): Social security in developing countries
(Oxford, Clarendon Press).
33. Economic Security for a Better World, 2004, ILO
34. Decent Work and the Informal Economy, International Labour Conference, 90th Session
2002, Report VI, ILO, Geneva.
35. 'Where Does WPPF Money Go?', Afshan Sabohi, Dawn, 14 November 2005
36. Pakistan Statistical Year Book 2005.
37. Mazdoor Huqooq, Food Edition, 18-24 June, 2005
38. Mazdoor Huqooq, Food Edition, 30 April- 6May, 2005
39. Mazdoor Huqooq, Textile Edition, 1-5 Sept, 2005
40. Ibid.
41. Mazdoor Huqooq, Engineering Edition, 10 Aug-13 Sept, 2005.
Women in Labour Force
1. Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme.
2. Medium Term Development Framework 2005-10, Planning Commission, GoP.
3. In the LFS 2005-06, sex ratio is 105.
4. Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2003-04.
5. Medium Term Development Framework 2005-10.
6. In India, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that included guidelines and norms
prohibiting sexual harassment at workplace. Reference in the ILO report Time for Equality
at Work, 2003.
7. Bridging the Gender Gap: Opportunities and Challenges, Pakistan Country Gender
Assessment 2005, World Bank,
8. Labour Courts Survey, 2005, PILER.
9. Labour force Survey 1990-91
10. Labour Force Survey 2005-06.
11. Labour Force Survey 2005-06
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
12. Source: Ibid.
13. A. Sayeed & G.Khattak (Eds) Women's Work and Empowerment Issues in an Era of
Economic Liberalisation, Pakistan Institute of Labour Research & Education, Karachi,
2001.
14. Ibid.
15. LFS 2005-06.
16. F. Parveen & K. Ali, Research in Action: Organising Factory Women Factory Workers in
Pakistan, Al-Mushir, vol. 35, No.1 Spring 1993, Karachi.
17. Pakistan Statistical Yearbook 2005, Government of Pakistan.
18. Medium Term Development Framework 2005-10, Planning Commission, GoP.
19. State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report 2004-05.
20. Situation Analysis on Sexual Harassment at the Work Place, 2001, AASHA (Alliance
Against Sexual Harassment at Work Place), Pakistan.
21. Home Based Women Workers in Pakistan, 2005, National Commission on the Status of
Women.
22. Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2005-06.
23. Ibid.
24. Home Based Women Workers in Pakistan, 2005, National Commission on the Status of
Women.
25. Khan, Khattak & Kazmi, Hazardous Home-based, Sub-Contracted Work: A Study of Multiple
Tiered Exploitation, 2005, SDPI & Oxford University Press, Karachi.
26. Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06.
27. The United States International Trade Commission (USITC), 2004.
28. Karin Astrid Siegmann, 'The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing: Potential effects on
gender equality in Pakistan, 2004,' in Transforming Institutions of Power: Towards Gender
Responsive Governance, Rozan, Islamabad.
29. Ibid.
30. Subcontracting Chain in Garment Industry of Pakistan, 2002, Working Women's
Organisation, http://www.poptel.org.uk.women
Anti-Labour Actions and Workers' Struggles
1. http://www.privatisation.gov.pk
2. www.edb.gov.pk/Corporations/STEEL/Pak%20Steel
3. Mian Abdul Qayym, Chairman Labour Quami Movement, Faisalabad, in an interview.
Marginalized: Migrant Labour, Bonded Labour & Child Labour
1. GoP Ministry of Interior, http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/divisions
2. NARA subsequently stopped registering Afghan refugees.
3. As per census of Afghan nationals carried out in 2005 by the Pakistan Population Census
Organisation in collaboration with the UNCHR, http://www.nadra.gov.pk/site/351/
4. http://www.unhcr.org.pk/about.html
5. http://www.onlinenews.com.pk
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Associated Press of Pakistan, http://www.app.com.pk
9. Aquila Ismail, (Ed), Solid Waste Management, 2001, URC Series, City Press, Karachi.
10. GoP Ministry of Interior, http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/divisions
11. PILER sample survey of released bonded haris in camps around Hyderabad, July 2000.
12. E. Ercelawn & K.Ali, Mitigation and Abolition of Bonded Labour: Policy, Law & Economy in
Pakistan, 2002, PILER
13. Data based on media report and HRCP annual reports.
14. Z. Shah, Analysis of Interventions in Bonded Labour in Pakistan, 2005, PILER
15. Ibid.
16. Dawn, September 22, 2005.
17. Dawn, April 27, 2007
18. Pakistan Agricultural Census 2000
19. State of Human Rights in Pakistan, 2006, HRCP
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan
20. Ibid.
21. Daily Dawn & The News
22. State of Human Rights in Pakistan 2006, HRCP.
23. Rapid Assessments Studies of Bonded Labour in Different Sectors in Pakistan, Ministry of
Labour & ILO, 2004
24. State of Human Rights in Pakistan, 2005, HRCP
25. Daily Dawn and The News
26. Daily Dawn, 27 July 2006
27. The End of Child Labour: Within Reach, ILO, 2006.
28. Sources: Pakistan Labour Force Surveys 1996-97 and 2005-06
29. Labour Force Surveys 1996-97 and 2005-06.
30. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007: Strong Foundations: Early Childhood Care and
Education
31. Daily Dawn, 02 Oct 2006.
32. The State of Pakistan's Children 2006, SPARC, Islamabad.
33. Ibid.
34. State of Human Rights in Pakistan 2006, HRCP.
35. Daily Dawn, 26 May 2006
Labour Institutions
1. C. Candland, 'The Political Element in Economic Reform: Labour Institutions and
Privatization Patterns in South Asia,' in Privatization and Labour: Responses and
consequences in Global Perspective, Eds, M.P.Posusney and L.J.Cook, 1999, Edward Elgar,
UK &US.
2. C. Amjad-Ali, Relative Stagnation: Pakistan's Labour Movement, in 'Globalization and the
Third World Union: The Challenge of Rapid Economic Change', edited by Henk Thomas,
1995, Zed Books, London.
3. C. Amjad-Ali, Charles, Evaluation: Trade Union Co-Financing Programme, Country Study
Pakistani, undated, unpublished document.
4. J. F. Harper, (ed.), Trade Unions of the World, 1987, Longman
5. http://www.pwf.org.pk/pwf_structure.htm
6. ITUC was formed on 1 November 2006 out of the merger of the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL).
7. C. Amjad-Ali, Relative Stagnation: Pakistan's labour Movement, in Globalization and Third
World Trade Unions, Ed. Hank Thomas, 1995, Zed Books, London.
8. Ibid.
9. Daily Dawn, 27 Sept 2006.
10. Daily Times, 16 March, 2006.
11. Strengthening Pension, Insurance and Saving Systems, Contract Package A, Component 1:
Reform of Retirement Benefit System in Pakistan, The Aries Group, LTD. USA, May 2006
12. Daily Dawn, 16 July 2006.
13. Daily Dawn, 14 November 2005, Where Does WFFP Money Goes?
14. Strengthening Pension, Insurance and Saving Systems, Contract Package A, Component 1:
Reform of Retirement Benefit System in Pakistan, The Aries Group, LTD. USA, May 2006
15. Ibid.
16. Daily Dawn, 9 October 2006.
17. Daily Dawn, 16, January 2007
18. Labour Courts Survey 2005, PILER, unpublished document.
19. Daily Times, 18 Feb 2005.
20. Ibid.
21. WEBCOP: Partnership for Peace, Productivity, Prosperity, Secretariate, Skill Development
Council, Karachi.
22. Organising for Social Justice, ILO 2004 Report
23. http://www.webcop.org.pk/maa.htm
24. Daily Dawn, 16 May 2005.
23 Labour Rights in Pakistan