Saira Ferzoe General Secretary United Garment Home-based Workers Union, Zahida Mukhtar, Raqiqa Hanif, Shabnam Usman, Jamila M. Hanif, Nasir Mansoor Deputy General Secretary National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) and Central Leader of Workers Rights Movement Gul Rehman were also present.Zehra Khan said the day of October 20 carries a huge importance for the home-based workers as on this day in the year 2000 the women workers and other labor organizations of South Asia through the Kathmandu Declaration has announced to celebrate it as the home-based workers’ day and pledged that more than 50 million home-based workers of the region, 80 percent of them women, would launch a joint struggle for their due rights, social security and legal recognition as workers.
She said today when we are celebrating the home-based workers day it is a heartening matter that home-based women workers are organizing them in whole South Asia and demanding from their governments to recognize them as worker.
Due to the globalization of imperialism in whole world including Pakistan the wages and privileges of workers are witnessing a continuing decrease. The legal right of forming unions is being snatched from workers. In Pakistan more than 12million home-based workers even in this 21st century are deprived of their fundamental rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan, as well as, international labor laws. The rat race to earn even more profit, and global imperialist policies to capture new markets have created a slavery-like condition for labors. Rapid shift of production to the informal sector has made a serious crisis in society.In Pakistan the home-based women workers are playing a crucial role in every sector of production but legally they are not considered as workers and hence they cannot get benefit from social security, pension and worker welfare schemes, and there is no law of minimum wages for them. In case of any individual or collective dispute with employers they cannot go to labor court or any department related to labors. The home-based women workers toil for 16 to 18 hours daily and use their homes as factories just to maximize the profit of capitalists.
In these circumstances, the home-based women workers in the year 2009 established their own representative organization, HBWWF, and got it registered with NIRC. This is the first nation-wide trade union federation of women in Pakistan. It in collaboration with other organizations has formed a draft of policy for home-based women workers and presented it to the provincial government of Sindh. Moreover, the draft of Home-based
Workers Act is in the final stage. After the approval of this policy and act, more than 5 million home-based workers of Sindh would enjoy all those rights available to other labors under the labor laws.
Zehra Khan and other speakers on this occasion demanded from the federal and all provincial governments to give HBWWF representation in the tri-partite consultation for forming new labor laws and industrial relations act (IRA) and ensure safeguard of their rights in new labor laws. They demanded that the government of Pakistan should rectify the homework convention C-177 of ILO, agreed upon in the year 1996, and go for lawmaking in its light.
They asked all political parties of Pakistan to announce including the issues of rights of home- based women workers in their political and economic agenda. They asked that in view of the changing conditions a new definition of workers should be written to include in it the workers who work at different places away from the factories and industries, so that millions of labors, working outside the factories could also be covered by it.
They demanded to set up special training centers for home-based women workers and set up special sale centers for the products made by home-based women workers in all big shopping centers and markets. They demanded forming cooperatives for home-based women workers and taking steps to introduce their produces to the international market.
They also announced to hold a demo in front of Karachi Press Club on October 20 in connection with Home-based Workers Day and to hold the provincial convention of HBWWF on October 28 in Sindh Museum Hyderabad.
Advice from and written by Zehra Khan General Secretary Home Based Women Workers Federation Email: zehra.akhan@gail.com
