Pakistan: suspension of trade union rights at the Water and Power Development Authority ("WAPDA") 

Please find attached a copy of the letter I have just sent to His Excellency Mohamad Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in protest at the suspension of trade union rights at the Water and Power Development Authority - WAPDA). The WAPDA, which employs 130,000 people, who at present are denied the right to organise and to bargain collectively, is now in practice under military control. These measures are a threat to the very existence of the Wapda Hydro Electric Central Labour Union, a major affiliate of the All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions (APFTU, one of our three affiliates in the country).

This situation, the culmination of a dispute that has been dragging on for months, has led the APFTU to lodge a complaint with the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association. The ICFTU will be associating itself with this complaint in the next few days. One of our other affiliates in Pakistan, the APFOL, has also approached the government to express its support for the APFTU’s demands.

I would appreciate it if your organisation would also send a protest letter to the Pakistani government, as well as inform your own national authorities and the Pakistan embassy in (or holding jurisdiction for) your country. Prime Minister Sharif’s telefax numbers are given in our letter, but they are far from reliable. His e-mail address does work however, and is as follows: primeminister@pak.gov.pk

Please do not hesitate, if other means fail, to send messages by ordinary mail.

As this is the first appeal to the Committee in 1999, may I urge you to inform the ICFTU of any action taken in this regard, by e-mail, fax or any other means.

Finally, please inform the APFTU of your support, by telefax, at: 92-42-723.95.29 or be e-mail at: apftu@brainnetl.pk

Thank you for your cooperation, and a very happy New Year to you.

Bill Jordan
General Secretary

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Suspension of trade union rights at WAPDA

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which represents over 125 million workers affiliated through its 200 member organisations in 144 countries and territories, was dismayed to learn, through the All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions (APFTU, one if its affiliated national centres in Pakistan) about the steps which you have recently taken and which in effect deprive 130,000 workers at the Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WADPA) of their legitimate trade union rights.

I thus understand that, amongst other measures taken:

• application to WAPDA of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969 and of the Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968, has been suspended by a Presidential Ordinance promulgated on 22 December 1998;

• the above-mentioned Presidential Ordinance hands over the running of WAPDA to the country’s armed forces, on the basis of Art. 245 of the 1973 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan;

• WAPDA has in effect been militarised, as evidenced by the nomination of a senior military officer, Lt-Gen. Zulfiqar Ali Khan, as Chairman of WAPDA, the induction of between 30,000 and 35,000 junior commissioned officers (JCOs) and approx. 250 officers - up to the level of brigadier - of the Pakistan Army in the eight transmission companies and one distribution company composing WAPDA;

• WAPDA workers have in effect been deprived of their trade union rights, including the right to collective bargaining, and the rights of the WAPDA Hydro Electric Central Labour Union as collective bargaining agent have been cancelled.

While aware of the fact that severe financial and organisational problems may at present be affecting WAPDA and other state-owned utilities, I must call your attention, Mr. Prime Minister, to the fact that such severe restrictions on the right to organise and to bargain collectively as have recently been imposed at WAPDA run precisely contrary to international labour standards, first and foremost Conventions n°87 and 98 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), both of which have been ratified by - and are thus binding on - Pakistan.

I am thus urging you to request the President of the Republic to repeal the Ordinance of 22 December 1998 as a matter of urgency, to take all necessary steps to restore full trade union rights to WAPDA employees, and to ensure that international labour standards are fully implemented throughout the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Anything less than a complete restoration of trade union rights to WAPDA staff would be met with a strong reaction by the ICFTU’s Committee on Human and Trade Union Rights and would leave the ICFTU no option but to lodge a formal complaint at the ILO against the Government of Pakistan.

Looking forward to a positive resolution of this case, I wish to assure, Mr. Prime Minister, of my highest consideration.

Yours sincerely,
Bill Jordan
General Secretary

cc.: Mr. Kurshid Ahmed, General Secretary, Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Central Labour Union