informal sector

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Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2015

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2015. 

The PILER 2015 Report on the Status of Labour Rights, fifth in the series, based on secondary research, aims to present an overview of the status of labour and the issues in the year impacting labour directly or indirectly. Currently, Pakistan has a labour force of 61.04 million, engaged in diverse sectors of economy, at various levels of occupations. The bulk of our non-agriculture labour force, 72.6 per cent, is employed in the informal economy and if we include agricultural work force, the overwhelming labour force is toiling under informal work arrangements, and the key issue with the informal economy is its lack of documentation.

Click on the link below to view the complete report:

Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2015

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Workers in Türkiye

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2022

“Once you’re in their books, you’re done for. … they’ll ask you what you do, how much tax you pay, where you’re registered, how much you make, and are you left wing or right wing.”— Mustafa Efendi, a character in A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk

WHEN you think of informal labour in Türkiye, the image that comes to your mind, if you read this, is the life of a street vendor in Istanbul, unfolding amidst diverse layers of changes: personal, social, political, environmental, ecological in the wake of urbanisation and the melding of tradition with modernity. The saga of change, chronicled by Pamuk in the novel, spans four decades from the 1980s to 2000s.

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Workers & Mobility

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2021

ONCE upon a time, Karachi’s Shaheed-i-Millat Road comprised two narrow and uneven metalled roads, with a dirt-and-dust field in between. It looked vast to us children who crossed it every day to reach school, a 15-minute walk from home. Serving a number of peaceful neighbourhoods, the artery connecting Sharea Faisal with Jail Chowrangi was later developed into a double-track shahrah with a green median strip, service lanes and traffic signals at six chowrangis. Plant nurseries sprang up on the sides. For decades Shaheed-i-Millat Road was a delight for the eyes, despite its drastic land-use change from residential to commercial. 

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Informal Economy

Published in Dawn on January 21 2018

THE 12th Five Year Plan (2018-23) — to be finalised soon — is based on a strategy that combines “inclusive growth with green development”. In recent years ‘inclusive growth’ — growth that benefits all segments of society — has replaced ‘poverty alleviation’ as a catchphrase in development planning. Everyone is talking about it, including the IMF, World Bank, ADB, ILO, national governments as well as those averse to the ‘growth’ paradigm. So let’s hope all players in the international and national arena mean it and are out to promote “equity, equality of opportunity, and protection in market and employment” as defined by the World Bank.

The time has come for Pakistan to address inequity and to tackle the informal economy, which is considered a barrier to inclusive growth as it excludes the majority of people from accessing opportunities of productive growth in the economic realm and deprives them of entitlements at work because of their informal status. In comparison, workers engaged in formal, registered, tax compliant businesses and units are legally covered for social protection.

The government cites its inability to bring thousands of small enterprises under the tax net, while the enterprises point to financial constraints as the main reason for remaining informal. However, both concede that formality is desirable for it benefits all stakeholders in the long run. Yet the goal remains elusive.

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Labour and Literary

Published in Dawn on July 13 2016

“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence.” – Paulo Freire

You are probably one of those employers who find that no matter how many times you change your domestic worker, the woman you hire for household chores has a strong desire to educate her children. Of course, she herself, aged 16 to 50, is illiterate and comes from the rural hinterland of Sindh or southern Punjab. But deep down in her heart your maid knows the power of education.

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Labour Rights in Pakistan: Expanding Informality and Diminishing Wages (2011)

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2011. 

The report highlights the absence of pro-labour strategies in the country’s economic design. It also highlights the destruction caused by the floods in 2010 and 2011. Consequently, the poor face further deprivation and 2.5 million affectees remain deprived of access to food, water, shelter and healthcare facilities. The flood affectees and working poor of the country do not have decent employment and the state has failed in rehabilitating them. The situation is worsened by an economic policy that relies heavily on exports.

Click the link below to view the full report:

Labour Rights in Pakistan: Expanding Informality and Diminishing Wages

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Coastal power

Published in Dawn on March 23 2015

While trade unions in Pakistan are by and large led exclusively by men, women too have played an important role in labour struggles in the informal sector.

Whether it was tenants rising up against landlords in the pre-Partition era, brick kilns and agricultural workers struggling for freedom from bondage in contemporary Sindh and Punjab, the peasants’ resistance against the military for land rights, or the fisherfolk’s struggle for rights on natural resources, women have emerged as leaders. They have mobilised marginalised communities to tackle tough challenges.

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