Hundreds of charged labourers, including women, gathered outside a garment factory in Karachi to protest against their forced layoff only a week before the International Labour Day. They, in fact, had come to receive their salaries but were verbally informed that the factory no longer required their services due to the financial losses caused by a lingering lockdown imposed by the government to curb the raging coronavirus outbreak in the country.
A few kilometres away, another demonstration was held outside a famous textile company, which also laid off hundreds of labourers citing the same reason. “It’s happening in all over Pakistan [nowadays]. Labourers, especially daily wagers, and contract employees are being laid off without any notice,” said Shams-ur-Rehman Swati, president of National Labour Federation (NLF), a conglomerate of different labour unions in Pakistan. “Every day, hundreds of labourers are being laid off across the country since the government imposed the lockdown last month,” Swati told Anadolu Agency.
The massive layoffs coincide with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s call for not firing the employees during the coronavirus pandemic. The government recently announced incentives for the private companies who will not fire their employees due to the ongoing economic slowdown.
However, according to the labour unions, thousands of labourers have been fired in the last two months in the country.
In addition, the government has launched Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program to provide financial assistance of Rs 12,000 each to some 12 million families affected by the coronavirus crisis.
According to the Ministry of Planning, 12.3 million to 18.5 million Pakistanis will lose their jobs, whereas the economy will concede a colossal loss of 2-2.5 trillion rupees ($12.42-15.52 billion) due to ‘moderate to severe shocks from the coronavirus outbreak’.
The informal labourers – which according to labour unions, account for 75% of the country’s total 65 million workforce – will be the worst hit. Around 40% of them are in agriculture sector, while remaining work in services, manufacturing, and other sectors, according to the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), a non-governmental think tank, which deals with labour affairs. “These informal labourers are not registered anywhere. They do not have any social security or legal cover. Millions of them will lose their jobs, I fear,” Karamat Ali, the secretary of Pakistan Labour Council and executive director of PILER, told Anadolu Agency.
The Labour day is going to miss the traditional fanfare this year due to the coronavirus lockdown. “This will be a completely different Labour Day as the labourers never faced situation like this. On the one hand, they are facing unemployment, and hunger, while on the other, a deadly disease like coronavirus,” Ali observed.
There will be no rallies, seminars, and other public gatherings to mark the day for the first time in the country’s 72-year history. “We are not worried about that. We are worried about millions of our labourers, who have already been laid off or are going to lose their jobs due to the coronavirus crisis,” he maintained.
“Pakistani labourer today is not thinking about the May Day. He is more worried about the hunger looming on him, and his family due to unemployment,” Swati said, and observed that the ongoing wheat harvesting, the reopening of construction and some other low-risk industries, and Ehsaas program by the government provided some relief to the labourers.
