The labour leaders have demanded of the government for ending brutalities against workers and urged for following the Constitution and labour laws.
These demands were put forth by the leadership of Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaz, Mutahida Labour Federation and Railway Workers Union; Muhammad Yaqoob, Qazi Ahmad Naeem Qureshi, Shaukat Chaudhary, Altaf Balouch, Sheikh Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Akbar, Isthiaq Chaudhary, Fazl Wahid, Hanif Ramay and Nazeer Shahzad in a joint statement here on Wednesday.
They elaborated, “The Sindh government through an ordinance had announced that no worker will be terminated from employment nor lose his salary due to the Covid-19 epidemic. However the ground reality remains that on 19th May, workers of Denim Clothing, Ghani Glass, Rajby Textile and Sadeeq Sons not only were terminated from their jobs, but were subjected to brutality and arrests by the Police.”
The leadership maintained that these workers were subjected to these “horrendous atrocities only for raising their voices for their rights. The leadership said a worker was injured due to the Police firing on the workers.”
The labour leadership added that a lot of workers have been terminated in factories all across the country. “In the cities of Punjab, including Lahore — thousands of workers have been terminated from their jobs; these include Pel Factories 500 workers, Al-Aziz Paper Mills Muridke 85, Ayub Factory Lahore 5000 workers.
The situation in other provinces remains the same, where thousands of working class people have lost their jobs in the name of the Covid-19 epidemic. The leadership claimed that there have been cases of arrests and firing on workers all across the country. They termed the situation of these draconian steps against the workers as ‘alarming’.
They said that if the federal and provincial governments can’t implement the laws in their own provinces, then they have lost the right to continue governing, and of obtaining any subsidies according to the constitution. If the situation was not brought under control and the progression of cruelty imparted on the workers continues unchecked then the workers all across Punjab will start protests against the lawlessness governance and police bullying, they added.
The labour leaders said the factory owners have obtained billions from the government in the name of coronavirus lockdown in the form of subsidies and loans. Yet, they have seen the utmost negligence and a lack of seriousness in regards to the paying the wages of the workers or their employment security.
They demanded that the government should immediately release all the incarcerated workers and conduct proper proceedings against the officials who fired on the workers. They also demanded for the federal and provincial governments to implement the laws forwarded by them.
