Ghani tells PILER conference: Labour code will not be enforced without consultations
KARACHI: The proposed Sindh Labour Code would not be enforced without consultation with labour representatives, and no decision would be taken without reaching a consensus, Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani said at the National Labour Conference 2026 (NLC26) on Saturday.
The government, he said, wanted to take everyone on board rather than impose the code on workers.
The Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) convened the conference at the PILER Centre, bringing together trade unionists, researchers, lawyers, journalists, climate experts, human rights defenders, policymakers and a large number of workers from across the country to agree on a shared agenda for Pakistan’s working class at a moment of deep economic and climate strain.
Referring to the HIV cases issue reported at a hospital, he said the government was willing to bear the treatment costs of the affected children and was building a system to sustain that support.
PILER executive director Abbas Haider said the organisation had spent more than four decades educating and organising workers, documenting their grievances over “wage theft, unfair dismissals and harassment”, and researching emerging threats such as heat stress on the shop floor.
“These are no longer separate struggles,” he said. “Economic pressure, weak enforcement of rights, privatisation and climate change are bearing down on the same working families, and our task now is to turn that shared understanding into a shared agenda.”
Held under the theme “Jobs, Economy, Privatisation and Climate in Pakistan”, the conference was built around four sessions: the impact of the IMF programme on households, the gap between labour rights in law and in practice, the future of public-sector workers amid privatisation, and climate change and a just transition.
Economist Dr Asim Bashir said Pakistan was running a persistent trade deficit and was under debt stress, yet lacked a coherent, scientific strategy to resolve the crisis. It was a low-income country, he added, bearing the tax burden of a high-income one.
Senior economist Dr Asad Sayeed said inflation had eroded the purchasing power of workers, pushing the poverty rate up to 34 percent and lowering living standards. He also drew attention to stunted growth among children.
Labour expert Abida Ali pointed to a stark gap between the wages of men and women, saying women were paid less than their male counterparts. International labour standards, she said, needed to be translated into local law, and no solution was possible unless workers were organised at the shop-floor level.
Muttahida Labour Federation, Punjab, general secretary Hanif Ramay, speaking on the proposed Punjab Labour Code, warned that such measures were normalising third-party contracting, and that if the codes were implemented, workers across the country would be outsourced.
Trade unionist Qamarul Hasan said the labour codes were an attempt to strip away workers’ rights, adding that Sindh had resisted them and would continue to do so. He said the codes raised many objections over definitions and interpretations, and stressed that sectoral unions were needed to enable collective bargaining at the macro level.
Sultan Muhammad Khan, president of the All Pakistan Coal Mines Labour Federation, said unions were repressed and banned in Balochistan, and urged other provinces to speak out. He said 300 workers were killed every year in the mines, and that despite the unions’ limited presence, they had helped bring the toll down to 150 — though much remained to be done.
Latif Nizamani, president of the All Pakistan WAPDA Hydro Electric Central Labour Union, speaking on the privatisation of public institutions, called for an alliance of labour unions and organisations to wage a joint struggle to protect the future of workers who had built institutions such as WAPDA and the Railways and programmes such as the Lady Health Workers.
Senior journalist Afia Salam described a “just transition” as one rooted in justice, noting that the burden of climate crises fell on vulnerable people who had contributed least to carbon emissions. She warned that Pakistan and Bangladesh faced growing flood risks and rising temperatures, and blamed deforestation and a growing reliance on concrete.
With poor rainfall this year and rivers running dry, she said, agricultural output would suffer in a country dependent on farming.
South Asia Partnership Pakistan executive director Mohammad Tahseen highlighted the plight of fishermen jailed in violation of local and international laws, and called for more fishermen’s unions to be brought into the labour movement so that no one was left behind.
The conference concluded with a set of recommendations. These included the immediate enforcement of the statutory minimum wage, backed by real penalties for non-compliance; a guarantee of workers’ constitutional right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, along with simpler, time-bound trade union registration and protection against the victimisation of organisers; and universal social security coverage for informal, contractual and other non-standard workers, including the growing ranks of gig and platform workers left outside existing protections.
The recommendations also called for recognising heat stress and other climate-related hazards as occupational safety risks and obliging employers to provide water, rest, shade and heat-action plans; strengthening safety protections in the mining sector; ensuring functioning anti-harassment committees with meaningful representation of women workers; ratifying and implementing ILO Conventions No. 155 and No. 187 on occupational safety and health; ending the misuse of third-party contracting to evade employer responsibilities; and requiring international brands to ensure their suppliers meet national labour laws and international standards across the supply chain.
On the Lady Health Workers programme, the conference demanded an immediate halt to its privatisation or outsourcing to the PPHI or any other third party or contractor, a proper service structure for the workers with time-bound promotions, and the provision of pensions for retired Lady Health Workers.
Other speakers at the conference included Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed; gender expert Faiza Shaikh; labour expert Javed Gill; National Trade Union Federation general secretary Nasir Mansoor; All Sindh Lady Health Workers and Employees Union general secretary Shama Gillani; All Lady Health Worker Programme Union president Bushra Arain; Railway Workers Union general secretary Rao Naseem; Climate Action Centre’s Yasir Hussain; Khalid Mahmood of the Labour Education Foundation; Saeed Baloch of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum; Professor Riaz Sheikh; women’s rights activist Mahnaz Rahman; Tahir Hasan Khan of the Karachi Union of Journalists; and Habibuddin Junaidi of the Peoples Labour Bureau, Sindh.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026