Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2023
The melancholy of having to count souls/ Where they grow fewer and fewer every year. — Census Taker by Robert Frost
THE poem published in 1923 by the American poet captures the solitude of the locale, of diminishing life as farmers left the New England region in droves and headed to the cities in the early 20th century. What have the census takers in Karachi in 2023 felt while counting the people? By all accounts, it was exasperation.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, March 18th, 2023
THREE years have gone by since the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Termed as the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis since World War II, it is still being debated whether the pandemic is over or not as new infections and deaths occur in a number of countries. By February 2023, 6.8 million people had died. Besides, hundreds of millions of people lost jobs globally, millions saw their salaries cut or work hours reduced. Most countries have not yet returned to the levels of employment and hours worked before the outbreak. According to an ILO report, informality and working poverty have risen further with the Covid-19 crisis.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, March 4th, 2023
NATURAL gas has played a major role in Pakistan’s energy matrix since the first large reserve was discovered in Sui, Balochistan, in 1952. Significant gas fields of smaller sizes were discovered subsequently and made operational in the provinces, particularly Sindh where the gas reserve at Mari was discovered in 1956, and the Qadirpur and Miano gas fields in the 1990s. Since then, exploration, discoveries and oil and gas production have continued.
Oil and gas extraction requires huge capital, sophisticated technology and highly skilled labour. The first beneficiaries are thus the investors — operating companies and management (national or global corporations).
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, December 30th, 2022
WHILE the global textile and apparel industry is in the process of moving into total digital transformation, Pakistani industry is struggling with basic workplace safety issues. So how can the Pakistan Accord on Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry be a game changer? Precisely because a sound infrastructure is the edifice the industry — any industry, especially a labour-intensive industry — is built upon. If the entire industry endorses, owns and implements the Accord, which is to be launched in January 2023, it can trigger a process of change for the better.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, May 29th, 2022
TRADE unions are in a flux the world over. The first two decades of the 21st century, characterised by heady globalisation and ruthless neoliberalism, accelerated the downfall of workers’ associations. The last two years of the Covid-19 pandemic came as a jolt. Trade unions realised it was time to do or die; change or bust.
One could sense a change in their perspective while listening to over 80 trade unionists and labour activists of the four provinces who gathered in Karachi recently and talked their hearts out. Consumed by internal weaknesses and worn out by persistent challenges, the senior leadership, though jaded, still exuded a passion for a just world of work and a desire to leave something tangible for posterity.
Continue readingPublished 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.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, November 28th, 2022
“All happiness depends on courage and work” — Balzac
A PARADIGM shift is taking place in the labour market of the world’s richest economy. Attributed to the shift in the mindset of workers, spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Great Resignation, the New Collar work and an upsurge in unionising are reshaping the US workforce.
After the lockdowns and the end of enhanced unemployment benefits they received from the state during the pandemic, workers have been re-evaluating their priorities and rethinking their work-life balance. Many have found the courage to take the plunge out of low-paid, stressful work, to learn something new and transition to ‘new-collar’ work, search for online, work-from-home options, or find a better paid, less stressful job. Others are opting for a work-free life, joining the anti-work movement, not with an aim to a lifetime of idling but “to start a conversation, to problematise work”.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, August 13th, 2022
TRADE unions invariably grow from the political system in a country. The structural nature of a country’s political system deeply influences trade union membership, coverage and impact. Primarily, it is the internal political system of a country that gives or curtails space to trade unions to either institutionalise and become stronger, or remain fragmented and marginalised. The impact of external, or global, factors is secondary, though crucial.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, May 1st, 2022.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein
THE Covid-19 pandemic, which destroyed the livelihoods of billions of workers, exposed the widening inequity in the world between the rich and poor as never before. An important lesson to emerge in the aftermath is the need for a “just transition into the future” and the need to go “towards a more protected and empowered workforce” as was said in a recent ILO report. This lesson may not have been grasped yet by the employers and workers in our country, but it has created a ripple in the world of work at large. Let us hope our employers, labour unions and state officials realise these needs, if not today, then tomorrow.
Continue readingPublished in Dawn, February 1st, 2022.
RECENTLY, I had a brief but interesting conversation with a Karachi bookseller who deals in old books and manuscripts. He is a mine of information on current trends. For instance, nowadays most of the orders he receives are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province which has also shown a fresh interest in Persian manuscripts due to the situation in Afghanistan; the Urdu-speaking population has lost interest in books; in Sindh’s smaller cities and towns, people ask for Sindhi books and manuscripts; and, of course, Punjab is where Urdu grew and most Urdu books and magazines were, and are, published.
When he asked me about my vocation I told him I write on labour issues. He remarked, “Labour, that’s a left wing issue… .” I replied, “Labour is as much of concern for the right wing as it is for the left!”
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Zeenat Hisam 