PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate of Labour has directed all the inspection staff in the province to start taking action against the private educational institutions, health centres and security agencies if they failed to pay minimum monthly wages of Rs15,000 to their staff through banks.Official sources told The News that the Directorate at an emergency meeting directed the labour inspectors to ensure payment of minimum wages to the staff of private organisations and take legal action against the defaulters after the deadline.It said that Secretary Labour Khayyam Hassan chaired the meeting, which was attended by Director Labour Irfanullah Khan, Chief Inspector (factories) Wajid Ali Hashmi and all inspection staff working under the directorate.The meeting was convened after various complaints were received through Pakistan Citizen Portal and non-payment of notified wages to workers in the province.The sources said the secretary labour took notice of various complaints received through Pakistan Citizen Portal regarding various issues including non-payment of minimum wages through schedule banks.Interestingly, the Directorate of Labour’s actions are not visible to the public as far as compliance with the minimum wages to staff of the institutions is concerned.In the complaints, it was stated that private educational institutions, private health centres and private security companies are not implementing the minimum wages law even after the Peshawar High Court in May 2018 struck down the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s amendment to end applicability of labour law about minimum wage to these institutions in the province.A division bench comprising Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim had declared illegal the amendments barring the private educational institutions from applicability of minimum wage law.As per the opinion of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general office, sought by the Law Department after the judgment of the high court, it was clearly mentioned that after declaring the amendment to the law as void by the high court, the old law is restored and the private educational institutions are included in the labour laws and no further amendments or other instrument would be required.“The departments concerned are now at liberty to carry out their mandated actions according to respective laws,” Additional Advocate General Waqar Ahmad Khan stated in the opinion to the law department after the judgment of the high court.A human rights activist, Fayyaz Ali Noor, who worked on the issue, told The News that even after the judgment of the high court and restoration of the old law under which the private educational institutions come, the minimum wages law is still not implemented in these educational institutions and teachers’ exploitation is continues as they are getting very low salaries.The previous provincial government had passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Amendment Laws) Act 2015, through which different amendments were made to labour laws.The amendments included the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Payment of Wages Act 2013, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) 2013, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minimum Wages Act 2013 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Industrial Statistics Act 2013.Through the amendment, the private educational institutions were barred from labour laws, and thus the law was no longer applied to the private educational institutions in the province after the amendments, which were then challenged in the PHC.After the enforcement of the Constitution (18th Amendment) Act 2010, four labour laws were passed in the province in 2013. The provincial legislature had passed those laws for the welfare of the workers associated with private sector institutions and units.Those laws were meant to regulate the minimum wages to certain classes of persons employed in factories, industrial establishment and commercial establishment, regulate the payment of wages, provide for regulation of industrial and commercial employment in the province, and facilitate the collection of statistics of certain kinds relating to factories, and industrial and commercial establishments. After passing the laws in 2013, the minimum monthly salary was fixed at Rs15,000 in the province.
from The News International - National http://bit.ly/2INtSP1
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