Dilemma of Labour Laws in Sindh

DILEMMA OF LABOUR LAWS IN SINDH DILEMMA OF LABOUR LAWS IN SINDH By Asif Amin, Advocate, Karachi The Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment was passed in April 2010 with the aim of providing more autonomy to the Provincial Governments of Pakistan. The Amendment received the backing and support of a large number of political parties as it sought to meet some of the long standing demands of the Provinces for making them independent in terms of getting more control over provincial resources, finances and revenues. As a consequence, seventeen (17) ministries (Education, Social Welfare and Special Education, Tourism, Special Initiatives, Population Planning, Local Government and Rural Development, Zakat and Ushr, Youth Affairs, Livestock and Dairy Development, Culture, Food and Agriculture, Sports, Environment and Health, Women Development, Minorities Affairs, Labour and Manpower) were abolished at the federal level in the year 2011 and their entire responsibilities were transferred to the provinces. The prolonged political and provincial grievances and the Federal Government's inadequate attention towards the transferred/devolved sectors were the root cause for this historical constitutional Amendment, which sought to bring good governance and development in these sectors. In most developed countries, however, key sectors such as Labour, Health and Education are under the domain of the Federal Government but in Pakistan these subjects were transferred to the provincial domain by way of the Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment without doing the appropriate homework. Due to such reason the Provinces are still facing legal complications and complexities in these transferred sectors. The post Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment era has created a situation where Federal laws contradict and wrestle with provincial laws specially Labour laws. The justice system with regard to labour laws after its devolution from concurrent list is said to be crawling at a turtle's pace. Investors, industrialists and labourers are also experiencing the slow pace of justice due to contradiction in Federal and Provincial laws. From the perspective of Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment, the Federal government is showing reluctance in transferring the responsibilities of some important institutions like the Employees' Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) and the Workers' Welfare Fund (WWF) to the provinces, especially in the wake of the provinces' shortcomings in building their capacity for handling such socially important institutions. From the perspective of labourers key institutions like the Employees' Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) should remain with the Federal government in order to continue disbursement of pension to poor workers from all over the provinces. If the Employees' Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) is transferred to the provinces pensioners from all the provinces will suffer e.g. if a worker belonged to the province of Punjab but he worked in the province of Sindh and his contribution towards EOBI went from the province where he was working, in such a scenario how would he get pension from the province of Punjab on reaching the age of superannuation? The province of Punjab would refer him to the province of Sindh to get his pension, causing him great suffering in hard times. The Provincial Government of Sindh in view of Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment promulgated the Sindh Employees' Old-Age Benefits Act, 2014 and repealed the Federal law on Employees' Old Age Benefit without looking into the merits, de-merits of the law and focusing on its after effects, only to generate more revenue for the province. After the said enactment most of the industrialists stopped their contribution to Federal Employees' Old Age Benefit Institution and some even went to court against the provincial law. Provincial Government of Sindh has still not practically established its own Employees' Old Age Benefit Institution and has merely made law on paper which is causing a lot of suffering to industrialists and workers. Not only this, the Sindh Government has also promulgated the Sindh Workers' Welfare Fund Act, 2014, in haste without providing a legal remedy and repealed the Federal Workers' Welfare law. In the current scenario most industrialists from the province of Sindh have gone to Sindh High Court and got injunctions against the provincial law on the basis whether they had to submit their 2% profit as per requirement of law to Federal or Provincial Government. As things stand billions of rupees are held with the Nazir of the court till the final verdict of the High Court. Industrialist are facing problems in closing their returns to show 2% mandatory submission of profit to Federal Government in compliance with the Federal Board Revenue (FBR). The Provincial Government instead of providing solutions and remedies is focusing on legislating more financial laws. Issue of jurisdictions is also evident in labour related cases in courts of all provinces, where many employers have challenged the applicability of federal laws to provinces, as the Provincial governments have not yet brought about the relevant changes in their labour laws as required in the aftermath of the Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment. In the Industrial Relations law the term "Trans-provincial" (which means the existence of establishment in more than one province) has made the situation worse; cases which were pending before the Provincial Labour Courts prior to Industrial Relations Act, 2012 are now transferred to National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC). Hundreds of thousands of cases have been transferred to NIRC from Provincial Labour Courts. Judicial forum of NIRC consists of much lesser members to provide speedy justice, due to which dispensation of justice has been delayed and most of the litigants have taken advantage of the term "Trans-provincial" in order to use delaying tactics to suppress aggrieved persons. The Provincial Government of Sindh has legislated almost eleven (11) labour laws till the year 2016 after the Eighteenth (18th) Constitutional Amendment and some are in queue to be legislated soon, but the irony is that majority of such laws have legal lacunae and blunders such as quoted repealed law references instead of new enactments. Every promulgation need not be done just for the purpose of promulgating law, as it creates more confusion and complexities. Before the process of legislation an enactment should be satisfactorily vetted by the Law Department of Provincial Government; it should be more focused on after-effects of promulgation and the law should be made for convenience of the people.