KARACHI: Trade Unions leaders and labour rights activists addressed a joint press conference at the platform of National Labour Council (NLC) on Tuesday and urged the provincial governments to announce the minimum wages. No minimum wages for unskilled workers were announced at the time of the announcement of budget this year. The labour leaders also demanded that the federal government provide three-month’s salary to the private sector workers as well. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had recently announced the provision of three month’s salary to all federal government employees. While addressing the press conference, Secretary of the NLC Karamat Ali demanded that the government, on account of the growing cost of living and the rising inflation rate, fix the minimum wages at Rs30,000 to Rs31,000 per month. Last year in July the federal and provincial governments had fixed minimum wages at Rs15,000 per month. Tracing history of the minimum wage fixation, Karamat Ali said that, in 1969, minimum wage for unskilled workers was fixed at the rate of Rs140 per month but the experts and economists were of the opinion that the wage rates were too low for the workers to meet their routinely needs and expenses. “We demand that minimum wages be fixed on scientific grounds and the wage rate be determined by taking into consideration the rate of inflation and other related factors that impact the life of a worker and his family,” said Ali before asserting that every year the minimum wages should be fixed according to this formula of indexation. Karamat Ali said that the provincial Minimum Wage Boards should announce the wages before Eid to provide relief to the poor workers. Karamat Ali stated that minimum wages for industrial workers were usually fixed by provincial Minimum Wage Board but no wages were fixed for other type of workers including agricultural workers and home based workers. Karamat Ali said that like the minimum wage limit, a maximum wage limit also needed to be introduced in Pakistan. Karamat said that the practice of enforcing a maximum wage limit was common in developed countries adding that, even internationally, maximum wages were announced to keep the gap between haves and have-nots at a limited level. Karamat Ali mentioned that the federal cabinet had recently enhanced the salary of the President of Pakistan to Rs. 846,550 from his previous salary of Rs. 133,333 and a bill in this regard has already been presented in the National Assembly. He pointed out that the salary had “more than doubled”. Karamat Ali said that after the 18th Amendment, labour subject was devolved to the provinces but the federal government still intervened in labour affairs frequently. For example, he said, the Prime Minister recently announced the names of the official delegation, which was going to take part in the annual meeting of International Labour Organisation (ILO) without any consultation with the provinces. “Every year members of a certain labour group are sent to ILO by the federal government, depriving provincial labour leadership from this opportunity” said Karamat Ali before demanding the introduction of a mechanism that enabled provinces to send their nominations for taking part in the international events including annual meeting of ILO in Geneva Senior labour leader Habibuddin Junaidi said that announcement of three-months basic pay for employees of the federal government was actually a political decision ahead of the upcoming general election. “This is an attempt to influence the election results,” he added. Labour leader Liaqat Sahi said that the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) had declared the third-party contract employment system against the Constitution, but the current government did not take any serious action to end third-party contract system in companies and government departments. According to him, hundreds of the thousands of workers in both public and private organizations were deprived of their due rights because of the contract system. Vice Chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) ,Asad Iqbal Butt, said that measures needed to be taken to provide relief to peasants and workers. Deputy General Secretary of National Trade Union Federation Nasir Mansoor, General Secretary of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum Saeed Baloch, Executive Director of Workers Education and Research Organisation Mir Zulfiqar Ali, and Farhat Parween of National Organisation of Working Communities were also present on the occasion. Published in Daily Times, May 30th 2018.