KARACHI:
Workers at the ship breaking yard in Gadani have threatened to go on strike if
they are denied their ‘due rights to health, safety and social security’.
Addressing
a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Wednesday, Bashir Mehmoodani,
president of the Ship Breaking Mazdoor Union, said labourers of the ship
dismantling industry are being exploited by their employers as well as the
government.
Mehmoodani,
who has been working at the yard for over a decade, claimed there was only one
ambulance for more than 15,000 workers but even that was hardly used in cases
of emergencies as the contractors have employed it as a means of transportation
for their families.
“The
ambulance is being used as a pick-and-drop van for the contractors’ children
from school and home. It is also used to bring their groceries,” the workers
union president alleged, adding that in case of an emergency they had to call
the Edhi rescue service.
In
the last two months, two workers lost their lives while a dozen sustained
injuries, including a young labourer who lost his leg, he said, adding that,
“We are not given any safety gear which is mandatory in the dangerous line of
work we are associated with.”
Seconding
the worker’s claim, Nasir Mansoor of the National Trade Union Federation said
that Gadani has the second largest ship breaking yard in the world after Alang
in India.
“On
the 15-kilometre belt, there are more than 132 yards owned by different people.
Since its establishment in 1968, it has generated revenue in billions of rupees
to the government and the owners but they, in return, have done very little for
the benefit of labourers who put their life at risk every day,” said the labour
leader.
Mansoor
claimed that 99% of workers are deprived of their right to be registered with
social security institutions and the government departments responsible to keep
a check on this had ‘criminally’ turned a blind eye towards it.
Other
speakers at the press conference urged the government to sign the existing
international conventions pertaining to ship recycling and implement them at
Gadani.
Source: the express tribune. 18 May 2016
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