THE Ittefaq Foundry & Works at Kot Lakhpat near Lahore was nationalised in January 1972 by the first PPP government and renamed Lahore Engineering & Foundry Ltd (Lefo). Soon thereafter, I started my first job in this state enterprise as a labour officer.

On the third day at work I heard loud noises outside my office. I came out and saw a man in a wheelchair, flanked by around 30 workers shouting angrily. I was told the man in the wheelchair — Taj Din — used to work in the factory’s furnace shop. While at work a few days earlier, he had lost both his legs as melted iron splashed over his legs.

The workers were agitating on two counts: (a) medical treatment being provided to him by the Punjab Employees Social Security Institution (Pessi) was not satisfactory, and (b) the management had provided him with no compensation for the loss of his legs. During those days, Pessi was managed by the government quite efficiently so I asked the staff responsible at Lefo for monitoring Taj Din’s treatment to pay special attention to him. But I had no clue about the amount of compensation to be paid.

Someone asked me to look for guidance in the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923. The act provided for the amount of compensation payable in cases of “permanent total disablement” and the procedure for payment. Taj Din was paid the relevant amount under the law and the matter was closed.

The amount given to injured workers is exhausted very soon.

Though the company had discharged its legal liability, the ordeal for the family had just started when their only breadwinner lost the capacity to make a living. A lump sum so received is exhausted within a short period and the family is left to face the agonies of life.

Pre-empting such happenings, progressive companies assign top priority to effective functioning of their programmes on safety and occupational health, acting on the principle that ‘prevention is better than cure’. During my 28 years of working with two top multinational companies in Pakistan, there was not a single case of “permanent total disablement” of any employee on account of industrial accident, although they ran huge, sophisticated manufacturing units.

The British Indian government was so caring about the issue of industrial accidents and the resultant compensation to the affected worker that the first-ever labour law which it promulgated in the subcontinent was the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923, which is still in use after minor amendments. The purpose of this act is “to provide for the payment by certain classes of employers to their workmen of compensation for injury by accident”.

Contrary to this, the apathy of our successive governments towards this matter can be judged from the fact that despite meteoric increases in the cost of living, the ceiling for application of the act remained confined to only those workers who drew a monthly salary of Rs3,000. In July 2007, this ceiling was removed by the government and the act became applicable to persons employed in any capacity as specified in the schedule to the act.

However, this amendment remained short-lived as by virtue of an order dated Feb 26, 2011, passed by the Sindh High Court, it was set aside on account of a legal loophole that the amendment should have been brought about through an act of parliament and not through the Finance Act, 2007. Since then, the wage ceiling of Rs3,000 has been revived and so far the state has taken no steps to correct the situation.

Similarly, the compensation of Rs200,000 prescribed for death or “permanent total disablement” was increased from Rs100,000 effective from Aug 1, 2001; this amount was not increased till July 2013 when the governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab enhanced it to Rs300,000 and Rs400,000 respectively. The amount continues to be Rs200,000 in Sindh and Balochistan.

Despite the state’s lack of empathy in such cases, progressive companies have remained quite generous in looking after the welfare of their employees. For instance, three companies are paying compensation of the following amounts: the first is paying Rs900,000; the second Rs1,200,000; and third the amount of the past 60 basic salaries of the employee in case of death or “permanent total disablement”. Except in the case of the second company, these amounts are doubled when the death of an employee occurs due to an accident whether “on or off the job”. Besides, the legal heir of the deceased employee gets a monthly pension from the Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution, which is currently Rs5,250 per month. An employee rendered incapable of working also gets an invalidity pension from the EOBI.

Looking at the large families that workers support, there is a pressing need for raising the amount of compensation payable in cases of “permanent total disablement” to Rs500,000 by all four provinces and removing the wage ceiling of Rs3,000 for application of the act.

The writer is an industrial relations professional.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2015

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