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EDITORIAL: Finally, it has taken an order from the apex court itself to set the record straight about pension benefits being a “vested right and not a charity, alms or donation from the employer who must accept them as compensation for the services rendered by employee”.

It went on to emphasise that “the payments of pension benefits are protected under the law, rules and regulations even in the private sector, where the scheme of pensions in vogue is according to the organisational/management policy”.

This ruling should go a long way to right some of the wrongs, which include denial of pension, long waits and utter humiliation, which retired employees have faced for decades in this country; especially, as alluded to in the judgement, in the private sector.

In fact, one reason Pakistan’s private sector lacks proper professional structure is that much of it never learned, or even bothered, to build a dedicated workforce.

Instead of rewarding employees during and, especially, after their work life, our private sector is dominated by family businesses with personally identified hierarchical structures that are run on whims and personal desires and decisions of owners, and it’s no wonder that worker rights do not figure prominently in their calculations.

Yet even in sectors that do have defined pension benefits, in both private and public sectors, sometimes getting those rights is not short of a nightmare. Therefore, the court was right to point out, both gently and firmly, that such irritants should be removed immediately.

People whose job is to put hurdles in the way of pension benefits of retired employees will themselves retire one day, after all, and they would not like experience the same unfairness they meted out to others; hence the court’s reference to the old saying, “as you sow, so shall you reap”.

The way widows and orphans have to endure long periods, often years of utter humiliation just to get their rights is a stain on the conscience of this society that the apex court ruling should go some way to remove.

But this is only a start. It remains to be seen, of course, how much more recourse to the legal system will be needed to actually implement an order of the highest court in the land.

Such things should rattle the government as well, especially in times like the present. It can already sense the discontent its compliance with IMF’s upfront conditions has stirred, and rightly worries about that anger spilling out onto the streets once high taxes and unfairly inflated bills bite further into people’s increasingly depressed real wages and savings.

To allow firms to go on with blatant unfairness by denying people their pension rights, especially poor families struggling to make ends meet in times of historic inflation and unemployment, will only make the time-bomb tick faster.

The pensions benefit issue is just one aspect that makes a large part of Pakistan’s private sector predatory and market unfriendly.

Exploitation of employees – including inadequate pay, delayed promotions and, of course, denial of pensions – is not just bad for the working class but also bad for the economy itself since it removes the benefits of innovation, among so many other things.

Instead, it gives rise to a disgruntled and dissatisfied workforce that always, by definition, performs below its potential; often because many workers are forced to look for complementary income to support their households. And this vicious circle goes on and on.

With nobody watching out for workers’ rights, perhaps the courts should have stepped in themselves and taken note a long time ago. Yet now that such an order has come, it’s time to ensure its implementation and march forward.

Hopefully, nobody will need to be reminded that pension benefits are an inalienable right, not some sort of charity.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024

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