Pakistan's exploited workers

There are not many among us who are interested in the working conditions and wages of low-paid workers. Naeem Sadiq is perhaps the only one who consistently highlights the extremely challenging conditions in which such workers survive through his articles, emails, and letters.

Naeem is an industrial engineer cum social activist engaged in promoting public interest causes for the last couple of decades. In addition to advocacy for governance reforms, he has spearheaded a campaign to improve workers' wages and working conditions on the lowest rung of society. His particular concern is for cleaners, coal miners, delivery boys, janitors, railway collies and security guards and sweepers.

Recently, he drew my attention to a news report that appeared in papers on May 21 about the suicide of a private security guard in Karachi. 

Most newspapers reported it as a case of family dispute. Naeem Sadiq says that anyone made to stand for 12 hours a day for 30 days a month while getting just Rs25, 000 with no old-age benefits and no social security is an absolutely vulnerable person – for shooting himself to death. 

A majority of affluent people are least bothered about the miserable life they live, and many of us do not know that it was the ninth reported suicide case of a security guard in the recent past. The police conveniently tend to camouflage these as suicide cases.

Obviously, many such cases result from extreme cruelty meted out to the low-paid staff such as coalminers, janitors, night watchmen and security guards. The exploitation that these workers face is a shame to any civilised society. 

It is criminal to treat the lower staff with this indignity and pay them such low wages that they end up taking their own lives. It is the greed and the desire of our rich and the powerful for more and more profits that force the poor workers to accept anything that their employers offer.

Cleaners, coal miners, delivery boys, guards and janitors are perhaps the lowest-paid workers in our society, as most of them receive less than half of the legal minimum wage and that too without the four mandatory monthly holidays. 

The Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) and the social security department — if there is any functioning — appear to be least concerned about registering all workers across the country. The minimum wage should be at least Rs40,000 for an eight-hour duty and at least Rs75,000 for those who perform a 12-hour duty, not what most low-paid workers get.

For a reality check, you may talk to any guard working at a bank branch anywhere in the country. You will be surprised to know that most of the guards receive just Rs25,000 a month and that too at a huge personal cost. Most industrial units in Pakistan are even crueller to their staff, as there is hardly any check on the hazardous working conditions in which they are employed. 

Many industries that deal with chemicals and heavy machinery seldom provide proper training to the staff who put their lives in danger for the employers' profit.

Even big industrial units in Pakistan seldom have an in-house clinic or a doctor with paramedical staff for any immediate medical needs of their workers. Protective gear is also mostly in short supply at many industrial units in the country. The same applies to shopping malls where a janitor or a guard is on a non-stop duty for 10-12 hours. 

One can see the janitorial staff constantly sweeping floors and picking up trash that careless customers or visitors drop here and there. A guard is more than a guard, sometimes making tea for other staff or directing customers to their required counters.

This makes them even more vulnerable to attacks by robbers who may strike at any time at unsuspecting guards who are not adequately trained to defend themselves. Petrol pumps are another example of low-paid workers being at perpetual risk. Since our drivers hardly bother to switch off their engines while refuelling their vehicles, there is always a high risk of a fire breaking out. 

Workers who service or wash vehicles at petrol pumps and service stations are mostly untrained and without protective gear. Fumes and gas emissions seriously threaten respiratory health, but there is hardly any petrol pump or service station that takes care of such issues.

Cash in bare hands is an even greater invitation to robbers who can make a kill anytime. Government and private hospitals are also no exception to this rule. Most government hospitals — especially in rural areas — do not have proper waste disposal systems, and even for the safe storage of corpses. 

A couple of years back, there was an incident of some dead bodies strewn over the rooftop of a hospital somewhere in Punjab. Extremely unhygienic conditions prevail for the janitors in hospitals where medical and surgical waste poses an extra risk to anyone handling it without adequate protection and safety gear.

Gloves, gowns and covered trolleys to carry the waste to its disposal site are also mostly missing. Even in affluent localities, one can see garbage collectors, guards, and sweepers working in extreme weather conditions and being unable to get a smile from the inhabitants, let alone offering them food or water. 

Garbage collectors work for hours in streets and alleys in searing heat and they are visibly parched, but hardly any homeowner ventures out to offer them something to drink.

Guards from private security companies find themselves in an even more vulnerable condition. They walk up and down the streets and find it hard to respond to a call of nature. Most of our low-paid workers are subjected to unlawful treatment, and they are also victims of wage theft and workplace stress. 

As most of us look the other way, many of us do not notice the predicament of these workers. So then, whose job is to take care of these workers? Employers and government agencies are primarily responsible for checking and ensuring these workers are paid at least the minimum wage.

Naeem Sadiq has interviewed many workers on their job sites who are usually reluctant to talk. Still, given a sympathetic ear, they open up to disclose the wage they get and the facilities they never enjoy. 

It is not that hard for the concerned government department officials to randomly check the salaries of low-paid workers and then take action against the companies that violate the minimum-wage law. The contract system is prevalent against which many trade unions have been waging a war for decades. But even trade union activities are frowned upon in this country, making low-paid workers unorganised and unable to raise their collective voice.

In the name of outsourcing, the contract system is becoming more entrenched as the company absolves itself of any responsibility to offer minimum wages or any other facilities, such as food or drinks or regular breaks during the duty hours. 

When low-paid workers complain to the company where they work, the bosses are quick to refer them to the contractors, who take action by removing the workers from that site or even dismissing them from the contractual job for which most workers don't even receive an appointment letter.

Those who earn millions and billions ultimately prove to be misers when it comes to offering minimum wages and a decent working environment to low-paid workers. This results in an atmosphere of increasing poverty, and the workers have nowhere to turn.

With its teeming millions of hungry mouths and poorly clad bodies, society is becoming a tinderbox that can ignite at any time. Once we are through with the war euphoria and the drumbeats of triumph, we must look at the issues that tens of millions of ordinary people are facing in this country.

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He tweets/posts @NaazirMahmood and can be reached at: [email protected]

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.

Originally published in The News