Industrialists told to adopt online system to pay wages

The Sindh caretaker government has asked the industrialists in the province to adopt an online system for payment of salaries to the industrial workers as per the labour laws.

The direction to this effect was given by the Sindh caretaker law and human rights minister, Barrister Omer Soomro, as he chaired a meeting of the provincial steering committee on business and human rights on Friday.

Representatives of 28 different government agencies and industrialists attended the meeting. Soomro maintained that the provincial labour and industries departments were under an obligation to ensure that industries in the province adopted an online system for the payment of salaries to their workers.

The Sindh government, after verification of the salaries being paid to the labourers, could take punitive action against the industries not adhering to its directives on the minimum wages of labourers, he added.

Sindh Industries Department Secretary Abdul Rasheed Solangi told the meeting that a law had already been enacted making it mandatory for the industrialists and mill owners in the province to pay salaries to their workers through a proper banking system.

He said several industrialists had been abiding by this law. Sindh Human Rights Commission Chairman Iqbal Ahmed Detho said that notices had been issued to several industries and commercial organisations for not adhering to the provincial government’s order about the minimum wages.

Soomro said the industrialists should ensure the fulfilment of the rights of the labourers and adopt good management practices under their obligations prescribed under the GSP-plus status granted by the European Union (EU) to Pakistan. He said the industrialists should take action to end child labour, and bonded labour, and also ensure that the workers in their industries did not face any form of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste or ethnicity. He warned that industrialists would have to face serious hardships in case the GSP-plus status was withdrawn by the EU.