PERSHAWAR: A lawyer has filed a petition with the Peshawar High Court challenging the government’s move to end applicability of different labour laws, including the one about the minimum wages, to the private educational institutions in the province.

Petitioner Saleem Shah Hoti requested the court to strike down the relevant amendments to the laws by declaring them illegal and unconstitutional.

Mr. Hoti filed the petition in the larger public interest saying private educational institutions across the province have been subjecting teachers to the worst form of exploitation but they’ve been removed from the purview of the labour department for being owned by several lawmakers.

The petitioner said there was no law in the province to regulate private educational institutions, especially the salary of teachers and working conditions for them.

He said last year, the provincial assembly had passed The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Amendment Laws) Act 2015 through which different amendments were made to different labour laws, including 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.

The petitioner said after those amendments, the labour laws in question no longer applied to private educational institutions in the province.

Lawyer insists highly educated, qualified staff members hired for few thousand rupees

The respondents in the petition are the speaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, the provincial government through chief secretary, provincial law secretary, provincial advocate general, and chairman of the ruling PTI Imran Khan.

The petitioner said after the enforcement of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act 2010, the four labour laws in question were passed in the province in 2013. He added that the provincial legislature had passed those laws for the welfare of the workers associated with private sector institutions and units.

The petitioner said 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.

He claimed the minimum monthly salary had been fixed at the rate of Rs13,000 in the province, whereas the private educational institutions had employed highly educated and qualified male and female teachers and ancillary staff members for few thousand rupees, which was both disrespectful and insufficient for them.

The petitioner said in several educational institutions, the staff hadn’t been paid salary during summer and other vacations, an act of sheer injustice and exploitation.

He said the labour department had launched a campaign to collect the statistics of private educational institutions in the province and carry out their inspection to address the grievances of the people and staff members.

The petitioner said the campaign panicked influential and powerful managements of private schools and colleges so much that they lobbied at the governmental level to secure exemption from those laws.

He insisted ‘that lobby’ enjoyed the support of the KP Assembly speaker, who owned an educational institution, and had succeeded to win over the support of MPAs leading to the passage of the impugned law by the assembly to remove private educational institutions from the scope of those labour laws.

The petitioner said the amendment law in question was an attempt to continue with the exploitation of private schools’ teachers and supporting staff and that it would ultimately bring negative impacts on the entire education system and thus, spoiling the future of the children.

He added that the impugned amendment intended to protect the pecuniary and business interests of certain people and that it amounted to the exploitation of a number of teachers and supporting staff members of private educational institutions.

Published in Dawn November 12th, 2016