Pakistan: Historic victory for workers' rights and democracy

Approximately 10, 000 workers from the Labour Quami Movement (LQM), a nascent power-loom workers' movement, began a 155-km march from the industrial city of Faisalabad to Lahore, the capital of Punjab, to demand that factory owners comply with minimum wages. The mass peaceful action compelled government to accede to worker demands and ensure that factory owners increased their wages by 28 percent, in line with current minimum wages in the country.

Ten days earlier, the Labour Wing of the Muslim League Nawaz had made an agreement with factory workers to raise the wages by 13 percent. However, LQM refused it, arguing that the Muslim League neither represented them nor acted in their interests. They subsequently held a mass meeting and warned the district administration of a long march on foot to the office of the Chief Minister in Lahore.

However, the district administration instead invited the LQM leadership to engage in negotiation and postpone the march. The leadership refused to cancel the march but accepted the offer of negotiation. Around 11pm that evening the administration gave in, and the demand was accepted.

The LQM is a movement of power-loom workers, which started organising in 2004 when the majority of the workers were being treated as bonded labour by the bosses of the power-loom industry. As a mass grassroots movement of workers in Pakistan, the LQM is working on expanding democracy to mobilise and emancipate the working poor and represents a paradigmatic shift in the workers' struggle. This is a new kind of unionism inspiring many in Pakistan.

POVERTY AND LABOUR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN PAKISTAN

The successful industrial action is unprecedented in a country where few factory owners respect the minimum wage (the current minimum wage is 8000 Pakistani rupees per month, or $84). Many workers are employed on an informal basis, and routinely experience gross labour rights violations. Estimates vary, but bonded labour, particularly in the textile industry, is thought to exceed at least one million. Child labour is ubiquitous, and 14-18-hour working days common. Approximately 84% of Pakistan’s population live under the poverty line, and as the price of staples increased by over 10% in the first few months of 2011, another 6.94 million Pakistanis have been forced into poverty in 2012.

ANTI-DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN

The growing strength of the LQH is an important signal that anti-democratic practices will not be tolerated in Pakistan. In their annual survey of workers' rights in Pakistan, the International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) reports increasing police and paramilitary violence against workers in the country, as well as false imprisonment and private-sector discrimination and intimidation of union members.

The movements' victory stands in stark contrast to the workers' strike in July 2010, when more than 100 000 textile and garment workers from LQM went on strike in July in Faisalabad to secure a 17% pay increase that had been passed by the government but which employers refused to pay. In November, the Anti Terrorism Court sentenced six trade union leaders involved in the strike to a total of 490 years in jail on what the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) has described as falsified charges.

The ITGLWF strongly condemned the reportedly brutal campaign waged by employers on workers and unions in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Workers were attacked by armed men employed by factory owners. Some were shot while others were badly beaten. Factory owners and henchmen resorted to violence by throwing stones and bricks on a peaceful march of workers, while police used tear gas. Around 100 workers were arrested. 25 workers were injured, including Tahir Rana, the president of LQM Faisalabad district, who was critically injured.

Successive ITUC and ILO surveys have documented an international shift towards greater repression of the right to collective bargaining and collective action by both state and private-sector actors. In this context, the emergence of LQM as a strong democratic force in Pakistan is both remarkable and important.

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* Khalid Mahmood is director of the Labour Education Foundation, an NGO which promotes worker rights and democracy in Pakistan.

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