The greed to concentrate more power has no end. Acting on the instructions of President Pervez Musharraf, the Jamali administration succeeded in passing the “Removal from Government Services Ordinance” in the National Assembly making it an Act of Parliament that would need a two-thirds majority to be scrapped.

A controversy was sparked when the government in the name of restructuring of official services introduced a new law in the shape of a Presidential Ordinance on 26 October 2000. The Ordinance gave unlimited powers to the President under which he could remove any government official with immediate affect. No remedy was available to the affected officials. The President removed Khalid Latif, former Chief Secretary of the North-West Frontier Province, and a number of other government officials with the help of the Ordinance.

Trade unions began agitating against the Ordinance and other anti-labour legislations, opposing it as the “most harmful for labour rights and conditions of work in Pakistan.” Trade unions, legal bodies and other rights organisations had declared the Ordinance not only “anti-labour” and against the norms and conventions of the International Labour Organization, but said it also violated the internationally accepted human rights charter. Despite criticism against the Ordinance, the government went ahead and enacted it as an Act of Parliament. How this happened will remain an important question, but the government proved very smart while passing the Act. In fact, the parliamentary opposition was on agitation and stalled the National Assembly for several months. This proved a blessing in disguise for the government, which taking full advantage of the situation, outsmarted the opposition and passed the Ordinance.

Senate Chairman Mohammad Mian Soomro unilaterally dismissed a resolution of the Opposition seeking amendment in the Ordinance. Senator Mian Raza Rabbani of the Pakistan People’s Party tabled a resolution in the Senate challenging the Ordinance and terming it as “anti-labour” and a “total violation of human rights.” The opposition was on agitation, but the Secretariat didn’t bring this motion in the House for an open debate, instead the Chairman dismissed the resolution in his chamber terming it as “simply unacceptable.”

Taking the Senate Chairman’s decision as a “challenge,” the Pakistan People’s Party tabled the resolution again as a Private Members’ Bill, says Ch. Manzoor, member of the National Assembly. A notice was given to the National Assembly for tabling a separate bill seeking appropriate amendment in the Ordinance. The proposed bill contained recommendations of the Tripartite Labour Conference 2000 and recommendations of different trade unions. The Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) also played vital role in preparing the bill. Ch. Manzoor maintained that the Ordinance in its present form did not permit more than 15 percent of the total workforce from the formal sector to form an association. Apart from the Ordinance, labour organisations prepared their recommendations on the proposed legislations, (1) Conditions of Employment Ordinance (2) Wages Ordinance (3) Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance and (4) Labour Welfare and Social Protection Ordinance.

The government in the recently announced ’National Labour Policy’ suggested amalgamation of 36 existing laws on different labour issues into six new Acts or Ordinances.

Meanwhile, the governing body of ILO while acting on a petition filed by different trade unions asked the Pakistan government to restore all agreements with the trade unions in state-owned organisations. Following the ban on trade union activities and associations in Pakistan International Airlines, labour organisations like the People’s Labour Bureau, People’s Unity, Air League and PIA Pilots Association challenged the Presidential Ordinance in the higher courts of the country. They also submitted an application in the ILO governing body through the International Transport Federation. The applicants through this petition sought a clear ILO observation on the issue and legality of the presidential order. ILO after hearing the parties said the order was against ILO norms and conventions and in violation of Section 02, 03 of Article 87 and Article 98 of the Geneva Convention. The body has asked the Pakistan government to take appropriate action, restore all trade union rights and honor all agreements with trade unions.