Let's move on, that destination has not yet arrived

شئر

136 years ago, the International Labour Day was celebrated in memory of the labour leaders who made sacrifices for the rights of workers in the city of Chicago and were hanged as a result.

Regarding the 136th International Labour Day, if we examine the labour movement and trade unions in our country, the situation is clear that this movement is facing severe resistance. Trade unions exist and are active to some extent in government, semi-government and other government-run institutions, but the situation in the private sector is very poor.

There has been no progressive change in the thinking of the majority of industrialists. They still regard labour unions as their rivals, perhaps enemies, and do not allow them to flourish. The result is that truly representative trade unions are disappearing and in their place, the era is very favourable for the rise of pocket unions. In these circumstances, what is said is to take a few rice out of the pot and taste them to gauge the whole pot.

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We examine the trade union movement in Pakistan's banking industry and come to the conclusion that after privatisation in 1991, the private owners and their management have destroyed the trade union movement in the banking sector and now There are a few sparks of scorched earth, but they too will be extinguished soon. In an industry where union membership before privatisation was 80 percent of the workforce of thousands, it is now only one percent.

The number of officers is now 99% but they are missing despite the presence of the officers association and now the banking industry of Pakistan which even now has a working force of about 2 lakh people but they are not happy and they are completely management. are at the mercy of

This tragedy is not only of private sector banks but the same situation is found in other institutions of different sectors. There are trade unions in government and semi-government institutions, but they are also facing the basic problem of their survival and thus we can say that the trade union movement in Pakistan is very weak. An incident happened recently that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, after assuming his duties, abolished two weekly holidays in government institutions and kept only Sunday holiday.

It is surprising that there was no significant reaction from the trade unions in this regard, but the employees of the banking industry through mobile phones and WhatsApp sent messages to the offices and press of the State Bank of Pakistan in Karachi and other cities across the country against this decision. An appeal was made to protest in front of the clubs. The surprising fact is that the protest took place and thousands of bank employees took part in it, but what is surprising is that as far as we know, no trade union or officers' association of the banking industry was involved in the movement, and that The leadership or organisation of this movement has not been revealed anywhere and thus we can call it a self movement.

Despite all these depressing facts, it is a fact that efforts are still going on in the country to revive the trade union movement. In recent years, meetings have been held in Karachi, Islamabad and other cities of Pakistan, in which trade union representatives have participated in large numbers and have formulated ideas and plans of action to pull the boat of the labour movement out of the water.

After the 18th amendment to the constitution, the labour sector was completely transferred to the provinces, as a result of which several legislations were enacted to protect the rights of workers and to promote the struggle of the trade union movement in Sindh province. The historic achievement achieved by the PPP provincial government in this regard has also been acknowledged by the officials of the International Labour Organisation in Pakistan.

The positive legislations made by the government of Sindh province have been imitated by other provincial governments as well, but as far as the implementation of the laws in accordance with its spirit is concerned, the situation is very alarming. It is said that the minimum wage law set by the government is not being implemented in the private sector organisations in the entire country. Under the labour laws, no worker can be hired for more than 8 hours a day. In contrast, the complaint of working 12,12 hours without any overtime payment is common.

Establishing and maintaining genuine trade unions in private sector enterprises is a major problem. Appointment letters are also not issued to the workers and thus lakhs of workers are denied benefits from EOBI, Workers Welfare Board and Social Security Institutions including old age pension, medical facilities, marriage grant, death grant and Deprived of access to free education and housing, the poor go home empty-handed in old age.

To spend the remaining days of life in Kasimprisi. The population of Pakistan is 22 million and the number of working class is more than 70 million, but there is no real representative of the workers in the country's Parliament, Senate of Pakistan, National and Provincial Assemblies. The demand of the labour organisations is getting stronger now that seats in the parliament should be reserved for their class.

When we look at the labour movement in Pakistan, we remember those martyred labour leaders of Chicago who fought 136 years ago to restore the basic rights of workers and make them work like animals for 18, 18 hours a day. Raised the flag of rebellion in the city of Chicago against taking the job. As a result of this historic upheaval, seven labour leaders were hanged by the industrialists' court, and they themselves indulged in the complacency that they had crushed the movement through violence, but this was their great mistake. The movement he dreamed of ending gradually spread across the world as a wave of awareness.

Trade unions were organised in all the continents of the world, red flags of rights were raised, many states included the red flags of workers and their rights in the basic manifesto of their states and today the whole world remembers the martyrs of Chicago with enthusiasm. celebrated with gusto, but the industrialists who hanged them and the so-called courts of justice acting on their cues have become part of the dustbin of history.

We as a society as a whole must learn from history and fully recognize and restore the rights of the weaker sections and the oppressed, and if not, are we looking forward to another May Day?