KARACHI: National Labour Council (NLC), a representative body of labour in Pakistan on Wednesday urged the government to remove all impediments in provision of a right to association and collective bargaining for all 60 million workers in Pakistan.
Addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club (KPC), the Convener of Sindh Labour Solidarity Committee Habibuddin Junaidi, NLC Secretary Karamat Ali, Habibur Rehman and other labour leaders said that Pakistan is obliged to take measures to remove all hindrances in provision of the right to join a trade union and the right for collective bargaining under 8 Core-Labour Conventions of International Labour Organisation (ILO).
“Under Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus Pakistan is obliged to implement 27 international conventions including the key 8 Core Labour Conventions,” said Karamat Ali.
Currently only one to three percent workers are organized under trade unions in Pakistan, which is very low number. This is because a lot of hindrances have been created, which prevent labour from joining trade unions.
Karamat Ali welcomed the national level referendum to elect Collective Bargaining Agents (CBA) in WAPDA on February 2, 2017 and announced to support All Pakistan WAPDA Hydro-Electric Workers Union, led by Khursheed Ahmed and Abdul Latif Nizamani. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) had allowed the country-wide referendum on February 2 by disallowing separate referendums in 16 distribution companies of WAPDA. Earlier, the WAPDA management had allowed separate referendums in all its 16 distribution companies.
“We appreciate the IHC decision and fully support the referendum at national level,” said Ali.
All Pakistan WAPDA Hydro-Electric Workers Union has been winning the CBA referendums for many times in the past and it is also the current CBA. Besides other achievements for the welfare of workers, the main credit to stop privatization of WAPDA also goes to the sitting CBA.
In 2016 the All Pakistan WAPDA Hydro-Electric Workers Union launched a country-wide campaign and protest demonstrations which resulted in cancellation of privatization plan of WAPDA. Other labour organizations had also joined them, said Ali. Habibur Rehman from WAPDA Union said that Sindh government and Balochistan are beneficiary of Hub Dam, which is being maintained by WAPDA. Rs. 2,212 million are outstanding towards these provincial governments.
Liaqat Sahi said that trade unions are struggling for a national level unions instead of provincial or local level unions. He demanded to abolish third-party contract system, which is against the Constitution. For many years, this contract system is enforced in many companies.
