2016 ITUC Global Rights Index - Pakistan

Power loom workers denied right to negotiate: Two and a half months after an agreement was signed assuring power loom workers in Faisalabad that negotiations on wages and workers' rights would begin, not a single meeting had been held. The Labour Qaumi Movement (LQM) staged a long march on 18 September 2015 to highlight their grievances, and called it off after assurances had been given that their issues would be addressed. By December, the factory owners had still not consented to a meeting. The only penalties imposed on the employers by the district authorities were small fines.

Workers jailed for protesting against illegal terminations at Philip Morris: Thirty-five workers were arrested in the city of Mardan on 6 January 2016 for peacefully protesting against the sudden dismissal of 141 employees at the Pakistan subsidiary of tobacco giant Philip Morris International. Workers were informed of the mass terminations on 21 November 2015 when they arrived at work.

With the support of the local union, whose president Abrar Ullah was among those arrested, workers launched a continuous round of protests at the factory gate after management refused to discuss the terminations and began pressuring workers to accept the illegal dismissals. To add to the pressure, police were called to the factory gate when the protest began.

On 6 January workers gathered with their union officers to present a Charter of Demands to management. The police arrived and arrested 35 protestors under the Maintenance of Public Order law, which allows for up to 90 days detention without charges.

A solidarity delegation from the Pakistan Food Workers Federation (PFWF) demonstrated outside the police station following the mass arrests. The arrested workers were then shifted to Bannu Jail, some 250 kilometers from Mardan and notorious as a prison for incarcerating Taliban activists.

Thanks to an urgent action campaign coordinated by the International Union of Food and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) the 35 workers were released on 10 January.

Workers' representatives dismissed for demanding rights: Eighty-eight workers of the Denim Clothing Company (DCC) – a factory that manufactures clothes for international brands such as H&M and Primark – were sacked in the last week of November 2015 for demanding their rights.

The workers had no social security, no insurance, no medical facilities and low salaries that came on no specific date, and decided to take up their concerns before the management. On 26 November, the workers held a meeting at which they chose five representatives to hold talks with the management. At noon, the team went to the manager's chamber. They never returned to their stations. They had been fired on the spot.

In solidarity, 83 of their colleagues went to management to demand the reinstatement of their five representatives. They were also dismissed on the spot.