On the eve of the International Labour day on May 1, 2012, the Federal government had announced an increase of one thousand in the wages of labourers while the Sindh government had also announced the same increase. However, the Punjab government announced an increase of two thousand rupees in the monthly-wages of labourers. With this increase, the labourers of Sindh, Balochistan and KhyberPakhtunKhuwah would get monthly 8-thousand while the people of Punjab would get monthly 9-thousand.
Following the announcement of the federal government, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced the same during his speech delivered at the Sindh Assembly's budget 2012-13 session, but the provincial labour department could not make it possible due to its inefficiency, sources said.
It was expected that after the devolution of the federal ministry of Labour and manpower, Sindh labour department would have played its role more efficiently but it failed to even notify the announced increase of one thousand in the labour-wages, sources said.
"There is a Sindh Minimum Wage Board (SMWB) working under the provincial labour department which has to do the work in this regard. It was established in 1974, in terms of the Minimum Wages Ordinance, 1961. The Board is a tripartite body, with a representation of employers, workers and the government with a Chairman appointed by the government, one independent member representing the government, one member representing workers of the province and one more member representing employers".
This Board had approved the announcement of the Chief Minister and incorporated it in the labour gazette, copy available with Business Recorder, but it had not been suggested to the Secretary Labour for proper notification, sources said. "When the Secretary labour issues its notification, then field teams of the department would make sure the implementation of an increase of one thousand" a senior official told Business Recorder.
In this connection, Zulifqar Ali Shah, Joint Director PILER termed this a great act of negligence of the labour department and said that the notification would have been issued with an increase of salaries and pensions of government employees as announced in the budget.