June 2004: Pictures of the demonstration against the Industrial Relations Ordinance 2002. Click on the thumbnail to view them.

HYDERABAD, June 24: People's Party Parliamentarians legislators have submitted a bill before the National Assembly secretariat, suggesting amendments to the Industrial Relations Ordinance-2002.

This was disclosed by People's Labour Bureau divisional president Ghulam Rasool Memon in a press statement issued here on Tuesday. The parliamentarians who have moved the bill include Manzoor Ahmad, Qamaruzzaman, Zulfiqar Gondal, Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari and Khan Zamrud Khan.

Mr Memon claimed that it was for the first time that members of the National Assembly had moved a bill to protect rights of the working class. He said it had been proposed in the bill that workers of public and private sectors should be allowed to form trade unions and the authority of the government to snatch this right from the workers for six months by issuing a notification be revoked.

He said the bill called for withdrawal of the discretionary authority of registrars of trade unions in respect of registration of a union or cancellation of a registration.

The right to strike of workers of public utility services should be restored and labour courts be empowered to reinstate sacked workers in their services with all benefits and facilities, the bill further proposed.

Mr Memon termed the IRO-2002 a black law which he said had been promulgated under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to facilitate privatization and downsizing.

He said the People's Labour Bureau and other trade unions would held protest demonstrations in all big cities and towns of the country on June 29 against the ordinance.

NOMINATION: Former member of the Federal Advisory Council for Minority Affairs, M. Parkash advocate, has been nominated member of the Evacuee Trust Board of Pakistan for three years, reliable sources told Dawn here the other day.