The stench of oil and acid inside Sukkur’s Pakistan Railways sleeper factory can be smelt from miles away. But train technician Mohammad Ayub* doesn’t care much for the foul odour; it is his hands that he is most worried about.

“Look at the blisters,” says Ayub, emerging from the work area in the workshop. “These aren’t just ordinary blisters; it is a disease with a complicated name that even I don’t know about.”

Ayub and the few around him all put out their hands and palms for me to see and bear witness to their symptoms; each one of them has one or the other skin disease, contracted because they have no protective wear despite having to work with acid.

“Due to the non-provision of nose masks, towels, anti-allergy soaps, or even anti-allergy medicines, different diseases have proliferated among workers of the carriage factory. According to the rules, these are to be provided to workers, but in practice, they are not,” says Ayaz.

Railway workers remain unregularised, and thus fall prey to exploitation and disease

The workers explain that a railways hospital existed near the Sukkur railway station for indoor and outdoor medical treatment of railway employees, but no anti-allergy specialist was available at the hospital and nor were any special medicines being provided from there. Then there are physical injuries sustained during loading and unloading of material; these too go untreated.

“According to the rules, a full-fledged hospice has to be constructed inside the Sukkur sleeper factory, where chest specialists, anti-allergy specialists, skin specialists and general practitioners would be present,” says Ayaz. “Because health facilities are not available, most railway workers don’t get treated. They cannot afford treatment and medication from private doctors. Many transfer whatever disease they have contracted to their family members.”

After the birth of Pakistan, five railway sleeper factories were established in the new country — in Kotri, Kohat, Khanewal, Shaheenabad and Faisalabad. In 1960, the Railway Concrete Sleeper Factory was established in Sukkur to meet the demand of sleepers for railway tracks in upper Sindh. Spread over 54 acres of land, this factory was more modern as compared to its counterparts and its manufacturing too was deemed to be of a higher standard.

"The worst off are those labourers who crush stone into concrete, and mix hill sand with ash. These people mostly contract different type of allergies due to flying dust, including chest infections, asthma, skin diseases, throat and nose problems, and other respiratory diseases.

As many as 400 sleepers were manufactured in one shift in the Sukkur factory. Today, at least 250 employees work in two shifts at the Sukkur Concrete Sleeper Factory; the morning shift employs 150 workers while there are 100 employees in the night shift.

“The worst off are those labourers who crush stone into concrete, and mix hill sand with ash. These people mostly contract different type of allergies due to flying dust, including chest infections, asthma, skin diseases, throat and nose problems, and other respiratory diseases. Only a basic dispensary has been provided to them for first aid or mild fever,” explains another worker, Barkat Shah.

As with other sectors, union leaders of these labourers believe that the treatment meted out to railway workers is also a product of these workers not being regularised.

“For regularisation of their services, the union moved the Supreme Court in November 2011,” explains Shahid Hussain Baloch of the Railway Concrete Sleeper Factory union. “As per the orders of the court, 73 employees were brought into regular cadre in 2013 during the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government.

Baloch narrated that former Railway Minister, Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad, had downsized the factory during his tenure. Only 195 posts were retained out of 309, while the remaining were abolished altogether. Before the SC orders, no employee was given regular status since 1980. In 1998, contractual employees were recruited, who now ensure that the factory’s activities continue unabated. Today, as per the union, there is an essential need of two dozen technical and non-technical staff.

“Because nobody is regularised, we cannot even ask of the fate of railway’s residential quarters. Most of these quarters are occupied by political influentials and policemen,” claims Baloch. “It is very difficult for employees to manage their households in a meagre salary between Rs9,000 and Rs12,000. Widows of deceased employees face even greater problems to retrieve any benevolent fund they are entitled to.”

But it is the non-existent hospital within factory premises that most workers are concerned with. “We can struggle all our lives to earn whatever little that we do,” says Barkat Shah. “But at least, give us a hospital so that we can survive. You have 54 acres to do that.”

*Names changed to protect privacy

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, January 4th, 2015