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On Labor Day eve, calls for improving workers' rights
By Frayan Doctor
30 April 2016
KARACHI: April 30 has become synonymous with Awami Workers Party (AWP) holding a rally outside the Karachi Press Club (KPC) demanding equality and justice for the labor class of Pakistan.Braving the intense April sun, hundreds of AWP supporters gathered outside KPC, donning the party’s colors, badge and carrying banners, raising slogans against the federal and Sindh governments for ignoring the plight of daily-wage earners and the struggles they have had to endure for decades. AWP chief Shafi Shaikh, sitting atop a tractor with fellow party cohorts, began his impassioned speech by thanking his party workers and supporters for converging outside the press club in sizeable numbers, and helping in staging the rally. Ironically, BOL Network – the news empire launched by disgraced Axact founder and chief executive Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh – had organized a seminar inside the KPC premises to “uncover the conspiracy against the corporation” and letting it speak against perceived injustices meted out to it.
Shafi then launched a scathing attack against the state machinery – namely the government – for repeatedly trampling upon the rights of the labor class across the employment spectrum. His opprobrium did not spare Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples’ Party co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, condemning them for their “apathetic attitude towards worker rights, especially the daily wage earners.”
Shafi added that no country in the world could succeed without the sweat and hard work of its workers, who “toil to build buildings, roads, and bridges for the elite, while they struggle to provide for their own families”. His impassioned supporters then chanted slogans to the tune of: “Sharam karo sharam karo. Doob maro doob maro.” This was repeated every 30-odd seconds, ending with loud cheers and applause each time. Condemning the corruption and the state machinery’s role in supporting it, other AWP leaders collectively lambasted the current political system, declaring that it would have to be brought down to bring about worthwhile change with the help of the common man.
There were repeated references to the Baldia Town factory fire of 2012, which killed well over 200 people, and was recently blamed on extortionists allegedly belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement by an inquiry commission. Gathered a few meters away was a group of men, women and children who were silently protesting the deaths of their relatives in the disaster with placards. They also demanded the recovery of their family members who have allegedly been picked up by law enforcement agencies without any trace. The rally ended with a song performed by one of the AWP members, Rasheed, and a declaration by Shafi to government school teachers who have been unpaid for the past eight months to converge at the Sindh High Court on May 5, which will be hearing a case regarding the situation.
