PAKISTAN has ratified 36 conventions of the International Labour Organisation, with two of them relating to the formation of unions and collective bargaining bodies agents. As the unions of Pakistan Railways and Karachi Port Trust were active during Partition, Pakistan ratified these conventions at its inception. The Freedom of Association and Protection of Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No 87), was ratified in February 1951, and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No 98), in May 1952.

The left-wing trade unions spearheaded the country’s labour movement with the Pakistan Railways’ United Union of Railway Workers, led by prominent union leader M.A. Khan. However, it was Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim, the chief of the Pakistan Trade Union Federation and Railway Workers Union, who, through the railway workshops in Lahore, chalked out a new direction. Moreover, a large majority of railway workers considered Ibrahim a powerful voice and champion of their cause.

The Karachi Port Trust also had established trade unions, which along with the Pakistan Trade Union Federation and leftist unions, were central to shaping Pakistan’s labour movement. But the government was........

© Dawn