ON the Orange Line Metro Train Project (OLMTP) near Shalamar Gardens, three workers are shifting heavy metal sheets onto the elevated track. They are wearing vests, apparently the only gear provided to them by the construction company. Two are wearing plastic slippers and dirty shalwar kameez. Two of the workers are from Khanewal, one from Multan.

“I get Rs500 a day, although any labourer working on a daily wage in Lahore gets more than that,” says Imran. “I have been working on the project for six months.” Appearing to be in his late teens, he says he has not yet got his national identity card.

His colleagues draw close out of curiosity.

“We were brought here by a contractor. We have been given a place to spend the night at. Everything else, including food and medicines, is arranged by ourselves. If we don’t come to work, Rs500 is deducted from the pay,” says one of them.

At some distance from these three, another pair of workers — one in his teens and the other in his 30s — also have a similar tale to tell. Working on iron bars, they are not wearing gloves or boots. They are also paid Rs500 a day with, they say, nothing else from the company but a place to stay.

Seven of their colleagues died and 14 others received burns on Jan 11 in a fire that erupted on the third floor of their makeshift residence in the company’s casting yard in the Mehmood Booti area. Thirty-five workers related to the project have lost their lives in various accidents since it was initiated.

That’s a telling figure.

Just a kilometre ahead of these workers’ residence, towards the Ring Road, is a rundown abandoned private school building. It’s the place that has been given to other workers. The two-storey building houses about 200 men, many of them from Sindh. They sleep on plastic mats.

“I have been working with the project for almost a year now. I get Rs12,000 a month but Rs330 is deducted from my pay if I take leave of absence,” says Riaz, in his 30s, from Naushahro Feroze in Sindh. “I will go back home after five months. I don’t get any other facility, which is why I’m leaving.”

One of the workers, who gets Rs15,000, claims that there is a pay-increase mechanism in the company. He says he has been working on the project since its inception and was getting Rs12,000 in the beginning. In contrast to the other workers, he claims the company pays their medical expenses, etc. He says that it provides them safety gear and boots for work, but he does not show anything to make his point.

This group of workers has been hired by a different contractor that belongs to Mianwali. Most of them are ignorant of their rights.

About seven kilometres away is the casting yard of the construction company. The beams used on the OLMTP elevated track are made here. This is the place where seven ill-fated workers were killed in a recent fire.

Progressive Labour Federation secretary general Niaz Khan says the OLMTP workers are not allowed to register a trade union. He alleges that no company working with the project follows labour laws and no worker connected with the OLMTP is given social security benefits that include marriage, death, and education, and housing grants.

“Safety, health, and protection are not given to the workers in most government and private projects,” says Mr Khan. “Workers who raise their voice are implicated in fake cases. The main company is working with contractors who hire workers so that they don’t have to give them social security cover and other benefits.”

Chaudhry Munawwar Ahmed Javed, a labour lawyer, says: “Any employee working for three months on a project that lasts for nine months, or more, is entitled to be made permanent under the labour laws. The company must register the permanent employee with the social security institution.”

Under the country’s labour laws, he adds, the employer’s company is liable to register its workers for group insurance and, in case of death, a worker’s family gets Rs400,000 insurance while the labour department pays his/her family Rs500,000 from the labour welfare fund. If any company does not register workers for insurance under the Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI), the labour department must impose a fine on it. But, Mr Javed says, companies don’t register their workers with social security and EOBI for various reasons, including minimum wage.

The construction company manager for safety, Amin, claims that they are providing free medical facilities to every worker and grant sick leave also. He says the Orange Line project is the first long-term project his company has taken up, adding that labour is a problem because most workers leave the job in five to six months. “We have to recruit new workers and give them training from the start,” he says. “The company’s pace of work slows down when a trained worker leaves the job.”

Amin claims that the company has provided safety gear for the protection of workers. “Special fire protection suits have also been provided where needed,” he says, adding that the company is following the personal protective equipment rules issued by their consultant, Nespak. He says the incident in which seven workers died occurred because of the negligence of a worker. Regarding compensation for the dead, he says the company has not yet announced any but in the past Rs1 million was sanctioned for any labourer who died during any accident.

(The names of the workers have been changed to protect their identities.)

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2017