Labor Day: What is the minimum wage law in Pakistan and how to ensure its implementation?

 

Labor Day: What is the minimum wage law in Pakistan and how to ensure its implementation?

‘It is impossible to survive on so much money, even a single meal is not enough, sometimes they eat dry bread and tea, sometimes they eat from a langar.’

Muhammad Rehman works as a security guard in a company in Islamabad. When I asked him how he manages to survive on a monthly salary of Rs 32,000, he replied with these words.

Muhammad Rehman is not alone in being paid a monthly salary less than the minimum wage set by the government. There are millions of workers in Pakistan, unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled, who are working in various sectors and institutions for wages less than the government’s fixed wage.

Mohammad Rehman, who hails from Malakand in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, and has been working as a security guard in various government, semi-government and private institutions in Islamabad for about 15 years, says about living on Rs 32,000 a month, “We are living a short life, we are just barely surviving.”

Of the Rs 32,000, Rs 15,000 is spent on basic rations alone. Rs 5,000 is spent on the education expenses of five to six children, although their children study in government schools. Uniforms and books are free there, but they have to buy copies.

Mohammad Rehman has three children and one of his daughters is sick, for whose treatment he spends Rs 8,000 a month.

Talking further about his situation, he says, ‘I keep only Rs 2,500 of my salary with me and send the rest home, but even after ten days, I get a call from home asking for money.’

He says that he owns his house in Malakand, otherwise if the house was on rent, it would be impossible to survive on Rs 32,000. His monthly electricity bill in a two-room house is Rs 3,500 to 4,500.

Mohammad Rehman said, ‘We cook some vegetables once or twice a month at home, otherwise we just cook potatoes or lentils by adding water and eating them.’

According to Mohammad Rehman, with such a meager salary, illness, happiness and sadness all go hand in hand in our homes. ‘I don’t buy food here myself, but I bring it from some langar, sometimes I eat it once a day, sometimes I get it the second time and eat it.’

‘I go home for a few days after six to eight months’

Muhammad Rehman says he has never received the minimum wage set by the government. ‘I go home for a few days after six to eight months.’

He says that even today, when the minimum wage set by the government is Rs 37,000 per month, he is getting Rs 32,000 per month. He said that the private security company he is associated with receives only Rs 37,000 from the organization where he is now serving as a security guard, but pays him Rs 32,000 per month.

Muhammad Rehman, who is a matriculation pass, says that he is aware of the minimum wage fixed by the government, but whenever he talks to his security company about it, he is told that the concerned agency is not ready to pay more than 37 thousand to the security company and the company itself has to earn something.

He says that the government has fixed the minimum wage of 37 thousand rupees for eight hours of daily duty and unskilled workers. I am a semi-skilled worker and my duty duration is also 12 hours, so I should get the fixed wage of 42 to 45 thousand rupees, but no one thinks about the poor here.

In Pakistan, we know about the minimum wage fixed by the government, labor laws and their weak enforcement.

What is the minimum wage set by the government in Pakistan?

The minimum wage set by the government of Pakistan during the current financial year is between 37 thousand and 45 thousand. The minimum wage of 37 thousand is often mentioned in the media, but in fact this wage is for unskilled workers.

Under the labor laws of the country, the government has placed such people in three different categories, which are unskilled workers, semi-skilled workers and skilled workers.

Rs 37 thousand per month is for unskilled workers working in any industry or institution, from the construction sector.

These include general laborers, sweepers, gardeners, unarmed watchmen, peons, etc.

According to the government notification, the minimum wage of such people working for eight hours a day for 26 days a month is Rs 37 thousand.

This is followed by semi-skilled workers.

These include people who are not educated or diploma holders and who learn a skill and work on it, such as masons, plumbers, bicycle mechanics, armed security guards, etc.

The government has asked to pay a minimum wage of 40 to 42 thousand rupees to such people.

After them come skilled people who have obtained a diploma in their work along with basic education, such as motorcycle mechanics, diploma-holder plumbers, electricians, car mechanics, welders, mobile mechanics, etc.

Their minimum wage from the government is 45 thousand rupees per month.

How does the government determine the minimum wage?

Speaking to the BBC, Iftikhar Ahmed, head of the Center for Labor Research, an organization working for labor rights in Pakistan, and an expert in labor laws and rights, said that there are different laws in Pakistan in this regard and after the constitutional amendment in 2010, the Wage Board was established and there are minimum wage watchboards in all provinces.

He says that according to the law, Pakistan is obliged to abide by the Wage Board and other laws under the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Convention.

According to Iftikhar Ahmed, the Wage Board is a body in which representation of workers, employers and government officials is mandatory. And according to labor laws, the government does not determine the minimum wage by thinking of any single figure on its own and according to the law, it has to decide it in consultation with all parties in the Wage Board.

Iftikhar Ahmed says that the fact is that the minimum wage figure set during the budget in June every year does not come after approval from the Wage Board, but is determined by the bureaucracy of the federal and provincial governments.

He says that Pakistan's labor laws state that the minimum wage will be determined on the basis that the basic needs of any family of four can be met.

He says that the Wage Board does not give a single figure for the minimum wage but gives different figures for different categories. 37 thousand is the fixed wage for unskilled workers in the country.

Talking about this, Syeda Kulsoom Haye, Director General of the Labor Welfare Department of the Punjab province of Pakistan, said that there is a procedure in which it is determined after consulting all the parties including the provincial wage board, after which their suggested figures are compared with the Consumer Price Index and the inflation rate in the country and a proposal is made as to what the minimum wage should be in the country.

She said that during the caretaker government, the minimum wage was increased by eight percent and the minimum wage was increased from 25,000 to 32,000 rupees per month. While last year it was increased to 37,000.

The DG Labor Welfare, while acknowledging the shortcomings and weaknesses in this procedure, says that consultation should take place first and the minimum wage announced later, but here the announcement has been made first and consultation has been done later.

He added that we are now trying to adhere to the consultation-first-announcement-later method for determining the minimum wage from the next fiscal year.

Why is the implementation of the minimum wage law weak?

Regarding this, Iftikhar Ahmed says that one of the major reasons for this is the lack of awareness about labor laws in the country and the media also mentions the lowest level of minimum wage and institutions consider it as the standard.

Talking about whether there is any forum to file complaints about low wages, he says that in every province there is an officer of the labor department called a labor inspector.

The main job of this officer is to implement labor laws and redress such complaints, but unfortunately there is no awareness in this regard in our country and the procedure for filing complaints is also complicated.

He says that if a worker has to file a complaint during the day, he has to go to the office with some necessary documents regarding his job and in such a situation, he has to work or file a complaint. Therefore, the government should provide a helpline in this regard where any worker can file his complaint.

He said that the Punjab government has recently introduced a helpline in this regard.

According to him, the federal capital Islamabad is the most in need of reforms. Here, the implementation of labor laws is the weakest and the government is not paying much attention to it.

Asim Sajjad Akhtar, who works for labor laws and labor rights, says that there is no doubt that ordinary laborers are being exploited in the country and a major reason for this is that the labor community is unorganized. Only two percent of skilled workers in the country are affiliated with any organization, union or forum. Therefore, the government and institutions do not face much pressure regarding their rights.

Asim Sajjad says that the second obstacle is the lack of education and awareness among these people. The government has also created the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC), where workers can get their rights and protection by registering themselves in a union or association, but there is no awareness about it and the institutions do not inform about it due to their own interests.

In addition, the Labor Department, whose job is to protect the rights of workers, is also not doing its job properly, otherwise, if there is nothing else in the country today, at least forced labor would have ended.

Syeda Kulsoom Haye, Director General of the Labor Welfare Department of the Punjab province of Pakistan, while talking to the BBC, said that 100% enforcement of the minimum wage is not available in any country in the world.

She says that there are many reasons for the weakness in the enforcement of this law. While on the one hand, the department lacks manpower, on the other hand, the department’s powers and the country’s judicial system also make it weak. She says that if the department takes action against an employer, then it presents the challan in the labor court. The employers get relief from these courts or take the matter to the labor tribunal and in some cases to the high court.

She said that the court system is slow, which makes the implementation of the law seem weak and we do not get the deterrence we want on the ground.

Syeda Kulsoom says that the department cannot punish an employer itself in any case, but rather its case is prosecuted. In such a situation, the court delays the decision in these cases a lot, which gives the impression that the implementation of labor laws in the country is weak.

DG Department of Labor Welfare Punjab Kulsoom Hai said that if an employer harasses any worker in any way, there is a procedure to file a complaint. In which, along with registering a complaint with the labor department, filing a complaint on the Chief Minister or Prime Minister portal, the Punjab Labor Department has introduced a helpline since 2023. Its number is 1314. It is working from nine in the morning to five, which is being tried to be done 24 hours a day. She says that the period for resolving any complaint here is seven days.

labour, Image source Getty Images

, Image caption Due to rising inflation around the world, now the idea of ​​fixing a living wage instead of a minimum wage, that is, a wage that can meet the basic needs of a family, is growing.

The theory of living wage

Due to rising inflation around the world, now the idea of ​​fixing a living wage instead of a minimum wage, that is, a wage that can meet the basic needs of a family, is growing.

Iftikhar Ahmed says that no action has been taken or awareness has been raised in countries like Pakistan.

He says that if the figures for 2025 are reviewed, the living wage in Punjab and Sindh is around Rs 60,000, but in Balochistan this figure is even higher.

Whereas the annual report 24-25 of the Wage Indicator Foundation, an international organization that collects data from different cities in 160 countries and conducts research on living wages, states that the living wage in Pakistan is Rs 52,000 per month.

He says that a good step taken by Sindh and Punjab is that the reforms in the labor laws have included a provision that the government will keep the basic needs of a family in mind while determining the minimum wage. Therefore, the basic needs of a family of four are not met in Rs 37,000.

He says that one of our problems is that the family size of these people is often more than four people and there is only one earner.

It is not possible for any government in the world to set wages according to the basic needs of a family larger than four people where there is only one earner.

In response to a question, he said that Pakistan is better in this regard because the minimum wage has been increasing continuously since 2010. While in Bangladesh, there has been no increase in it for years. If we examine the South Asian countries, the general economic conditions of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are almost the same and compared to them, the minimum wage in Pakistan is much better.

DG Labor Welfare Syeda Kulsoom Haye says that we accept that 37,000 is not a living wage but a basic salary on which one can barely live.

She says that it is definitely difficult to implement it in Punjab, but the department is trying to implement it as much as possible, and so far the Labor Welfare Department has succeeded in providing minimum wages to 850,000 people in Punjab.