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21 March, 2012
The ICEM is following with concern the implementation process of the new Industrial Relations law in Pakistan, a process which should include trade unions. Writing to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani on 13 March, the day before the Industrial Relations Bill went before the National Assembly, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda urged against further delays to the process
“The five ICEM affiliated trade unions in Pakistan have the support of an influential network of trade unions in 132 countries. These unions and all workers in Pakistan are entitled to proper legislation protecting their basic human and labour rights, legislation that provides proper industrial dispute adjudicating mechanisms, and most importantly the right for trade unions to exist,” stated Warda. (See the full ICEM letter here.)
The urgency was due to the pending expiration of the promulgated Industrial Relations Ordinance 2011 on 17 March. In a legal vacuum following earlier expirations of labour legislations, labour issues were devolved to the provinces by the subsequent 18th Amendment to the Constitution. A 2 June 2011 ruling by the country’s Supreme Court abolished the role of the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) because the relevant federal legislation no longer existed.
Leaders of ICEM's Pakistan Affiliates
The legal existence of trade unions in Pakistan was thus threatened. Encouragingly, the new bill was passed by the National Assembly on 14 March without amendment, as it was by the Senate on 7 March. The Pakistani government announced the new legislation as a landmark achievement that will promote harmonious employer-employee relations and protect the rights of the labour community. Politicians across political parties agreed that mature systems of industrial relations in Pakistan will contribute to industrial and economic growth.
The ICEM hopes that the new law will effectively rationalise the labour law in Islamabad and at the trans-provincial level with regards to formation of trade unions, trade union federations, and to regulate employer-worker relations.
A key stipulation of the bill instructs the government to constitute a NIRC with the power to adjudicate and rule on industrial disputes in the capital and at the trans-provincial level, also on industrial disputes of national importance. Local level industrial relations will remain covered by provincial labour governance.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, yesterday, 20 March, the Labour Appellant Tribunal dismissed appeals of local Syngenta management and ruled in favour of the ICEM-affiliated Pakistan Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union (PCEM) in declaring all 50 workers of a factory as permanent employees of Syngenta Pakistan. The ICEM salutes the PCEM in its victory in regularising these workers to permanent employee status.
Shockingly, the Swiss-based agrichemicals multinational Syngenta has ignored past court rulings in favour of the contract workers’ right to full time employment. The Syngenta Employees Union Pakistan, belonging to PCEM, has faced serious violations, including unjustified dismissals of its leaders. See last year’s ICEM report here.