Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that his government has decided to develop a unified labour law by consolidating, simplifying, and rationalising the existing labour laws in consultation with the social partners.
This he said while talking to a six-member International Labour Organisation (ILO) delegation led by its Country Director Mr Geir Tonsto here at CM House. The other delegation members include Guillermo Montt, Elena Gerasimova, Ivo Spauwen, Sadia Hameed and Sean Cooney. Provincial ministers – Nasir Shah, Saeed Ghani, Shahid Thahim, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, Secretary Labour Hafiz Abbasi, Secretary Law Ali Ahamd Baloch and others also attended the meeting.
Murad Shah thanked the ILO for providing technical assistance in drafting the Labour Code of Sindh. “The draft Labour Code consolidates, simplifies and rationalises the 21 laws regulating matters such as occupational safety and health, industrial relations and working conditions,” he said.
The draft Labour Code addresses the comments of the ILO supervisory bodies provided to Pakistan on ratified Conventions, related to legislative amendments, including those raised in the observations and direct requests of the Committee of Experts on Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR).
The LLR committee and the national and international experts agreed that a proper codification would not simply be a “cut and paste” of existing laws, stringing them together. That would lead to no meaningful improvements in modernization, efficiency and fairness. Rather, a codification involved reorganizing the provisions of existing laws in a coherent, up-to-date manner by rewriting and redrafting the provisions, keeping in view the aims of simplification, internal consistency and rationalization.
The advantages of comprehensive codification for stakeholders include businesses and workers across all sectors enjoying common fundamental rights and responsibilities; they do not vary arbitrarily from sector to sector as in the past, thereby creating economic distortions, the CM said and added the the law makes it much easier for businesses, including investors, and workers to navigate relevant provisions and understand them. The regulators can be clear about their roles and powers; definitions are consistent across processes and entitlements; obsolete industry-specific provisions are eliminated; and contemporary problems can be dealt with.
The drafters noted that most major jurisdictions have already reduced their labour laws into either one major code or a small number of comprehensive laws. Shah said that the consolidated draft Labour Code will support the province in meeting the targets under various United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The CM said that 19 laws were being included in the Sindh Labour Code. They include the Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, the Industrial Statistical Act, 1942; the Employment (Record of Service Act), 1951; the Maternity Benefits Ordinance, 1958; the Road Transport Workers Ordinance, Tea Plantations Labour Ordinance 1962; the Fee Charging Employment Agencies (Regulation) Act, Sindh Industrial Relation Act, 2013; Sindh Payment of Wages Act, Minimum Wages Act, Terms of Employment (Standing Orders), Act, Factories Act,; Shops and Commercial Establishment Act, Companies Profit (Workers Participation) Act, , Sindh Workers Compensation Act, Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 2015, Prohibition of Employment of Children Act, 2017, Occupational Safety and Health Act, 2017; Home Based Workers Act, Sindh Maternity Benefits Act,; and Sindh Women Agricultural Workers Act, 2019.
The consolidated draft Labour Code will support the province in meeting the targets under various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The ILO Country Director Mr Geir Tonsto emphasised the need to start a process to discuss and finalise the draft Labour Code through social dialogue before submission to the Parliament. He suggested the development of further regulatory framework through Rules that implement the Code (including OSH Rules, Rules of Business etc).
He mentioned that it was necessary to develop mechanisms and strategies to enhance compliance in priority areas, as well as provide capacity building and training for labour officers, inspectors, the judiciary, and other stakeholders.a
