First of May each year is marked as labour day internationally in the memory of some 18 labourers who were shot down on 1st May, 1886 at Chicago USA, as they were protesting against the long working hours.
There is a dire need of time to provide respectable berths to the laborers in the society. The entire social contract between the government and the people of Pakistan needs to be revised through new legislation especially the introduction of new labour laws have become exceptionally essential because the current laws do not provide the basic rights, security of jobs, prescribed working hours, suitable wages to the labour class.
Today in Pakistan, the plight of laborers is extremely awful; rather it is even worse than the conditions that existed in 1886 at Chicago.
If there are some laws that favor the labour class of the society, but they are not implemented in a proper way in the country.
Now it is the responsibility of the government to do something really good for the welfare of the labour by bringing new labour laws as par with the international standards. It is also necessary that labour laws should be implemented in the befitting manner in Pakistan.
Government as well as civil society should ensure the dignity of labour according to the constitution as well as the teachings imparted by Islam.
The labour are forced to live in extremely hard circumstances in the developing countries like Pakistan, where there is no right, and even no one is ready to give basic amenities to the working class at lowest level i.e. labours. They are deprived of healthcare facilities. Their children cannot go to schools to get an education. There is not any social security for them. There is not any system for compensation for the laborers in the country, if they die or get seriously injured during their work.
It has become a very odd fashion in Pakistan that the functions regarding May Day are marked in the air conditioned halls of five star hotels, from where even the labour cannot pass by the building of that hotel , where the day is celebrated . There is not any actual representation of laborers in these ceremonies , where the ministers, high government officials and some so called labour leaders, who do not actually belong to the labour class make tall claims in their speeches about the welfare and rights of the labour. But it is nothing more than lip service.
It is high time to give proper rights to the laborers practically, instead of making speeches verbally. Every political party has made pledges to make the conditions of labour better in its election manifesto, but after coming into power, they forget all the promises made to the people.
There are some government’s functionaries that were especially tasked to work for the welfare and rights of labour, but either their budget is too meager or they are working in typical bureaucratic “file work” style that the labour class cannot get benefit of directly or indirectly.
Now there should be serious efforts for the real welfare of the labour class and giving basic rights and to facilitate them to some extent.