Proletarian Challenge in Bourgeois Parliament

Members of the National Assembly Qamar Zaman Kaira and Chuadry Manzoor Ahmed have submitted two resolutions directly related to the real issues in society and the problems faced by the working classes in Pakistan. The first resolution is for the total repealing of the anti workers ordinance IRO 2002 (Industrial Relations Ordinance 2002). This was imposed by the Musharaf dictatorship at the behest of the IMF and other Imperialist institutions to raise the profitability and exploitation of the multinational corporations in Pakistan. This ordinance even deprives the workers in Pakistan of the meagre rights they had attained after the revolutionary movement of 1968-69. It empowers the imperialist and national bourgeoisie to fire workers at will and carryout the most draconian measures to crush the workers into submission.

'Workers in most mega units and institutions have been deprived of the basic right to organise (unionise). Similarly this ordinance has been imposed to further the agenda of the IMF - privatisation, downsizing, deregulation, liberalization and restructuring. This is an act of class war by the ruling classes through their oppressive state. These resolutions would have to be put before the house and debated within a few weeks. The position of various MPs and parties will be tested and their real class affiliations will be exposed. A campaign around these resolutions among the trade union movement has been initiated by the PTUDC (Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign) throughout the country. The first mass meeting was held in Karachi in which more than 300 trade union leaders and activists participated. They represented all the major institutions and industrial sectors in Pakistan. Comrade Manzoor Ahmed and Comrade Qamar Zaman Kaira spoke at the meeting and explained the resolutions they had presented. Several trade union and left wing PPP political leaders spoke in favour of these resolutions and vowed to start a mass mobilisation campaign to get the support of workers for these resolutions across the country at the time of debate on these resolutions in the National Assembly. A mass rally shall be organised in front of the Parliament Building. Hence the movement against the anti-working class policies of this regime shall be launched and moved forward both inside and outside Parliament.

The second resolution deals with the increase of the wages of the workers and the parliamentarians. Recently the regime gave a 150% increase in the salaries of the Members of the Parliament. In this resolution, Comrades Qamar and Manzoor have demanded that the wages of the workers should be increased by the same proportion as the increase in the salaries of the Members of the Parliament.

Another bill against the "Removal of Services Act" is being prepared and shall be submitted in the next session. This bill is being sent with the signature of MPs, Manzoor Ahmed, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Zulfiqar Alt Gondal, Zafar Iqbal Waraich and several other members of the National Assembly of Pakistan.

See the Contents of the Winter 2004 Asian Marxist Review

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