PPP and the working class
President Zardari has signed the Services Tribunal (Amendment) Bill 2010, repealed the Removal from Service (Special Power) Ordinance 2000 and Section 2A of the Services Tribunal Act 1973, a controversial clause that deprived redress to employees as they were not allowed to approach labour courts. Friday obviously turned out to be quite an eventful day for the PPP government. On the one hand the prime minister tried to plead the government’s case in his first monthly radio address to the nation while on the other hand, the president gave voice to the working class. The government has moved in the right direction by taking the PPP back to its original pro-people roots.
When the PPP came into being in 1967, its manifesto aroused great enthusiasm amongst the working class and the peasantry as it promised them a bright future. The PPP manifesto gave an impression that all factories belonged to the workers while all land belonged to the cultivators. The PPP promised to implement land reforms giving ownership rights to tenants. Instead sundry loopholes were provided to many of the large landowning feudals. This defeated the whole purpose of the exercise. The party’s left-leaning manifesto had committed to the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy. Embarking on that course, inevitably the targets of this policy were Pakistan’s leading industrial and business houses. On the other hand, a development that weakened the working class movement was the cooption of trade unions by the PPP and state-owned units. This resulted in the fate of the labour force that had been at the vanguard of the party’s rise to power being left in the hands of untutored bureaucrats heading the state-owned units, who used the opportunity to make a quick buck. The slogan of ‘roti, kapra, makaan’ was all but forgotten with the passage of time.
When Benazir Bhutto came back from exile to Pakistan in 1986, the people gave her party another chance to prove itself. By this time, the working class was a fractured and pale shadow of its former self because of Ziaul Haq’s massive crackdown on trade unions. The PPP government could not do much for the working class when it came to power in 1988 because it too, in conformity with the received wisdom, had accepted the neo-liberal paradigm and the Washington Consensus. The pendulum now swung from the idea of nationalisation to privatisation. The private sector was now portrayed as the main driver of the economy. Though the private sector is touted as being more efficient than the public sector, this has seldom been the case in Pakistan. Over here privatisation has proved to be a complete disaster. The blame partly lies with the previous governments that were unable to develop a robust mechanism to regulate the private sector. Our kleptocratic entrepreneurial class, in alliance with those foreign investors of dubious credentials, wreaked havoc with the state’s assets once they were privatised. It has now become fashionable to talk about public-private partnerships, but this too has failed to take off.
Having said this, it is a welcome sign that after policy meandering for two years, this government has taken a concrete step for the workers by reversing the draconian laws pertaining to the working class. By going back to its original élan, the PPP stands a better chance of regaining its constituency amongst the workers and the peasantry.
Source: Daily Times
Labour leader accuses contractors of torture
By Waseem Shamsi
Tuesday, 16 Mar, 2010
He said that his captors took him to an undisclosed place and tortured him mercilessly. — Dawn photo
NATIONAL
OGDC workers, sympathisers stage long march
OGDC workers, sympathisers stage long march
SUKKUR: A thin cord of threads dangling from his nose Usman Mahar, vice-president of labour union in Mari Gas Company, recounts the nightmare he suffered at the hands of his captors and points finger to the company’s administration which, he says, wants him to end opposition to contract system.
He said that the union had hung banners in the company’s premises, demanding end to contract system and regularisation of services during petroleum secretary’s visit to the company’s installations.
The administrative officer and contractors had forced him to remove the banners but he had refused, he said.
On March 9, he was returning home on a motorcycle after finishing work when five masked men in a car stopped him near Well No:6 and 8. One snatched his motorcycle and others shoved him into the car, blind folded him and drove away, Mr Usman alleged.
He said that his captors took him to an undisclosed place and tortured him mercilessly. They cut his hair criss-cross and pierced a “nath” through the nose to accentuate humiliation, he said.
His tormentors kept asking him during torture to stop his struggle for regularisation of contract workers and threatened that he might be killed if he did not withdraw the demand, he said.
He said that on March 11 his kidnappers were changing hideout when they ran into Dubbar police near Rohri and after exchange of fire they fled leaving him behind.
The same day he lodged an FIR against administration officer of the company Colonel (retd) Shoukat, company adviser Abid Pitafi and contractors Dadan Mahar and Mehboob Mahar, he said, adding that police had not so far arrested any accused. The accused were issuing him threats of dire consequences, he alleged.
An official at Daharki police station said that police would soon take action against the accused.
Contractor Dadan Mahar denied charges levelled against him and others by the labour leader and said that he was ready to face any inquiry and would volunteer himself for punishment if anything was proved against him.
He said that Usman was among the 117 workers who were working for his company, Fahad and Co, which supplied manpower to the gas company.
He said that his company’s contract with the gas company would expire in June 2010 and claimed that Usman had put up a farce to defame and blackmail him and others after seeing his job in danger.
This scribe tried to contact administration officer Colonel (retd) Shoukat but a telephone operator who gave his name as Qasim said the officer was not at home.
Meanwhile, former district nazim of Ghotki Ali Gohar Mahar summoned Usman Mahar, other office-bearers of the union, contractors Dadan Mahar and Mehboob Mahar, a representative of gas company Mian Manzoor to his residence in Khangarh on Monday to settle the issue.
After hearing both parties he gave 10 days to Usman to prove his allegations about torture and involvement of company’s officers and contractors and asked those accused by Usman to prove their innocence.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/labour-leader-accuses-admn-officer,-contractors-of-torture-630