by Feisal H. Naqvi
Do you know about Webcop? No? Well, don’t worry. The People’s Party does not know anything either. The only problem is this; your lack of knowledge is understandable: the PPP’s ignorance is criminal.
Webcop stands for Workers and Employers Bilateral Council of Pakistan. In simple terms, Webcop is an organization in which representatives from workers groups as well as from employers associations sit down and try to hammer out a consensus on law and policy issues before taking their agreed agenda to the government. More importantly, Webcop represents a new way of handling labour issues in Pakistan, one which actually works.
The traditional way to handle labour issues in Pakistan has been for the Government to sign every single international document in sight and then ignore them in practice. At last count, Pakistan’s body of labour laws included more than 160 different laws, regulations and rules, most of which are entirely ignored in real life. The review mechanism of these laws has theoretically been that great bureaucratic monster known as “tripartite” commissions; “tripartite” because the three stakeholders involved in discussions are labour, employers and the government.
In the case of Pakistan, tripartite commissions have conspicuously failed because both the workers and the employers see no incentive to compromise. Instead, both sides stake out extreme positions, leaving the government with the unenviable job of trying to figure out the reasonable middle ground. Or of just letting the whole mess stew around until it becomes somebody else’s headache.
In contrast, Webcop provides a bilateral meeting ground in which the two sides with the most at stake try to come to a common resolution. When they do, they take their common position to the Government, which is then normally quite happy to adopt the consensus position because it knows that all stakeholders will be happy with the proposed change (or at least, happier). And all of this is actually happening in the Land of the Pure where, as we all know, nothing normally ever works.
In the case of the Peoples Party, its apparent ignorance about what is generally considered to be the single most positive development in labour issues over the past decade, if not more, is particularly galling. In the first instance, the Peoples Party has been out of power for more than a decade. If nothing else, the people in its ranks have been afforded ample time to think about what things they would like to fix about this country. Evidently, they spent that time examining real estate opportunities in Dubai.
More significantly, the People’s Party has traded for years on its reputation as the pro-labour party. To the extent that class lines can be drawn, the PPP certainly can make a claim as the standard bearer for the rights of the industrial proletariat. But mouthing platitudes is not enough.
At this point, some readers may be wondering why am I getting all bent out of shape (as the Americans say) about an obscure omission in one part of the PPP’s manifesto? After all, who gives a damn about this stuff?
Nobody, and that is the problem. At this point, our political parties are all united on a single point agenda: anyone but Musharraf. But what is the second point of their agenda? What will happen if some fairy godmother waves her magic wand, sends the army back to the barracks and restores the judiciary? What then?
The point I am trying to make here is that the real hard job of governance is boring stuff, stuff like knowing the difference between trilateral and bilateral negotiations while renegotiating labour laws. If we do not get that stuff right, Pakistan will continue to flounder, irrespective of whether we have a democratically elected leader, irrespective of whether we have an independent judiciary, and irrespective of whether the army goes back to the barracks.
To repeat, out of all the political parties out there, it is the Peoples Party which should have some degree of knowledge about labour laws. The fact that the newly launched Peoples Party manifesto is conspicuously deficient in this regard does not make me feel good even though labour laws have very little relevance to my life. Because if the PPP manifesto is useless when it comes to things on which they should have expertise, then it requires a massive leap of faith to believe that the PPP’s intellectual prowess will be more impressive with respect to other issues regarding which they have no historical expertise (as in just about everything else besides labour laws.)
At the end of the day, it is the job of our political parties to attract the people with the requisite knowledge about policy issues. Looks like they failed.
Feisal Naqvi is a Lahore based lawyer and writer. He has contibuted this article to PTH earlier published by the Daily Times.
9 Comments
December 6, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Though Peoples Party has certainly moved back on Labour, i think its better it has not adopted the “class collaborationist” incentives like “employers and labour joint demands”
There are no such common demands. Such policy incentives have actually destroyed Labour movement around the world. Where Employers and Bosses demands are sugar coated and given to Labour as “their demands”.
PPP’s tradition is militant trade unionism , which she has certainly betrayed though a large number of PPP cadres still belongs to that tradition and are certainly working to revive their voice within PPP. A section of PPP has been active throughout Musharaf’s dictatorship against the managerial economic policy of Aziz government. They have organized many campaigns within trade unions to revitalize it , also launched “Labour conferences” to make a joint Labour agenda . These elements also filed bills in parliament against IRO 2000 and other such anti labour laws.
A movement within trade unions to built them and revive Labour agenda and than building its demands within PPP has been their focus.
Unless the Labour class itself recalls its traditions , PPP cant become revolutionary over night. It was a Labour movement in the first place that found voice in form of PPP, it were the people who spoke as Bhutto , not “Bhutto gave voice to people” stunt of bourgeoisies intellectuals .
Otherwise its the old agenda where these “nice commissions” are just a way of doing bosses dirty work. Capitalism has devised this great method and used it successfully in Europe, why to do the dirty work your self and face strikes and revolution, let the Union kill it self and do the dirty work!!
all the cuts , all the reforms won by trade unions now handed over back to the bosses.
This is not the way forward for the labour –
December 6, 2007 at 4:40 pm
You’re absolutely right, but the reason nobody gives a damn about this stuff is because nobody casts votes based on a party’s political strategy or approach to labour issues (or any national or international issues for that matter) etc; instead tribal/ethnic/clan affiliation is considered a more important factor, ie if the votes have not already been bought by money or bribery. So why would PPP talk about Webcop?
The impulse that drove Ejaz ul Haq to adopt the “Chaudry” title is testimony to this; our reluctance and failure to learn of an individual’s calibre as a leader, or educate ourselves on the worth of his polity. His being a chaudry is enough for many Pakistanis to kowtow to him.
December 6, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Qandeel:
how well articulated..politics has been a game of caste, tribe, ethnicity and local issues – politics of principle is still a distant dream though the current movement or the beginnings made suggest some change – let’s hope that this shift is permanent and long term..
Sherry: this was a good intro to the misfortune of the global labour movements – thanks for adding to the discussion and providing the ideological backdrop to Feisal’s article..
cheers
Raza Rumi
December 6, 2007 at 5:47 pm
heck, if he were to rename himself syed ejaz-ul-haq i’d vote for him and ensure, through my will, that my seven pusht voted for his seven pusht.
hmm…. but then i’d also have to vote for syed nawaz sharif and syed fazlur rehman and syed pervaiz elahi and syed imran khan and syed pervaiz musharraf — that is if a mere mortal like myself doesn’t want to go straight to hell for not submitting to the will of one or more DIRECT DESCENDANTS OF OUR HOLY PROPHET (S.A.W.)
the election results could be *quate* interesting.
quate!
December 6, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Kinkminos , great, i have no words——
December 6, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Hahaha, I think anyone voting for Pervaiz Elahi *will* go to hell…
December 7, 2007 at 3:20 am
Thanks for the comments. As for the Webcop people being collaborationists etc., why don’t you go talk to the labour people and the unions? To the extent I researched this issue, the common demand from both the employers and the workers was that they were making far more progress through Webcop than the traditional mechanisms. And don’t even get me started on how useless the traditional mechanisms are.
December 7, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I will agree to disagree—
December 12, 2007 at 7:45 pm
[...] Feisal H. Naqvi writes, “The traditional way to handle labour issues in Pakistan has been for the Government to sign every single international document in sight and then ignore them in practice”. This is a quote from his post at Pak tea house. He further thinks that PPP would have taken up this labor issue since it has offered a pro-labor out look at least in its not too long history. He feels this omission wrong to the extent of crime. Want to read more about it, you can find it here. [...]