LAHORE - Punjab Labour and Human Resource Department and HomeNet Pakistan on Thursday organised an orientation session for the members of parliament on the Punjab Labour Policy 2018.
The purpose of the session was to share the major components of the policy and salient features of Punjab home-based workers and domestic workers policy and draft legislations.
The members of Punjab Assembly vowed to guard rights of workers.
Secretary of Punjab Labour and Human Resource Department Sara Alam said the department felt for home-based workers, saying: “As part of ongoing strategy to gradually extend social protection to the vulnerable groups in Punjab, the department earnestly believes that a lot more needs to be done for the home-based workers.”
Ume Laila Azhar, Executive Director, HomeNet Pakistan, said the PTI government has taken numerous steps to ensure social and economic welfare of the workers during its first 100 days, included finalisation of Punjab Labour Policy 2018.
She proposed amendments to the existing laws for ensuring protection of the rights of workers. She said the earlier policy announced in 2015 had contained similar promises but failed to produce the desired results as no mechanism to achieve the goals was defined.
She said that no steps were taken in policy to ensure registration of industrial workers with Social Security department. “The policy is even silent on registering Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) and did not give any timeframe for adjudication of cases pending with various labour courts,’ she added.
She demanded that in light of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 and 8, it is important that in order to ensure the 45 percent female labour force participation.
