Daily Times

Chairman Pakistan People’s Party and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that there would be no compromise on labourers’ rights because if the labourers were prosperous, then Pakistan would be prosperous. He said that the Party would give representations to the labourers in all elected bodies following its manifesto.

Bilawal said if the people gave the mandate to the PPP in the upcoming general elections, it will start schemes like Benazir Mazdoor Card for the workers across the country, as it has started in Sindh.

In his message on the eve of International Labour Day on Sunday, the PPP chairman said that the backbone of the society was the toiling labourers and 1st May was a day to pay homage to the martyrs of Chicago and salute to the workers, farmers and laborers of Pakistan.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that during the regime of Imran Khan, the oppression of workers, farmers and salaried class had never happened before in the history of the country. Imran Khan’s policies favoring his ATMs and rich classes have set new records of inflation, unemployment and poverty in Pakistan, the consequences of which are now being felt by the entire nation, he expressed.

Today, PPP is struggling to save the poor people from the destruction unleashed by Imran Khan regime.

The PPP chairman said that it was an open history that the voice and struggle for the rights of the working class in this country and their implementation started after the establishment of the PPP. For the first time in the country, the labour policy was issued and the rights of trade unions were introduced in the country by former Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on February 10, 1972.

He said that former Prime Minister Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto took revolutionary measures for the rights and protection of workers during her shortest period of government. Awami government led by former President Asif Ali Zardari launched the Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme (BESOS) and gave free shares to the employees of national institutions while whopping increases were made in the salaries and pensions.

Bilawal said that the People’s Government of Sindh has enacted legislations like tripartite labor policy, Home Based Women Workers Act and Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). Making landless women farmers owners of their agricultural lands and lifting lakhs of families out of poverty through union council level anti-poverty program is also a distinction of the People’s government.

Meanwhile, the PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari in his message said that the PPP was a party of the workers and it would continue to protect the rights of labourers.

He said that the founding chairman of the PPP, Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto always stood by the workers in their struggle for labourer’s rights and rectified the injustices meted out to them through labour reforms.

Asif Zardari said that today due to the worst inflation, the working class was suffering from economic constraints. He said that the government of the PPP had made the labourers partners in the government-owned industrial enterprises under the Benazir Employees’ Stock Option Scheme. Asif Zardari expressed the party’s resolve to continue solving the problems of the working class on a priority basis after returning to power. He said that the PPP was adhered to the manifesto of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.