LAHORE: Three-day tripartite South Asia Labour Conference is opening here on Thursday (today) to discuss the issues facing the labourers across the region.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif will be the chief guest at the inaugural session as labour ministers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Maldives and high-level delegations from India, Nepal and Bhutan will be in attendance.

Seven working groups will be formed for the moot to cover aspects like harmonising labour laws, working conditions, productivity and competitiveness, labour market information for evidence-based policies & laws, labour migration, occupational health & safety, social protection and protection of vulnerable groups (children, women).

These groups will submit their recommendations for forming a joint strategy on all the issues to be announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the concluding session of the conference on Saturday.

Punjab government is likely to announce its labour policy on the occasion.

The working class is expecting that the issues confronting region’s labourers will at least be highlighted through the moot as some workers’ representatives have decided to welcome the delegates while some others have announced holding a parallel conference and staging sit-in in Lahore and elsewhere in the province.

The protesting bodies include the Labour Action Committee, Labour Qaumi Movement, Awami Workers Party, Labour Education Foundation, Pattan Development Organisation, Pakistan Institute of Education and Research, HomeNet Pakistan and Textile Power-Loom Garment Workers Union, Punjab.

They said in a press release that despite repeated appeals the Punjab government showed no interest in implementing labour laws, including those on minimum wages and social protection, in the province.

They said due to non-payment of minimum wages and other legal factors the working parents are being forced to send their children to work so that they could bridge the gap between income and minimum consumption needs of their families.

They said despite several assurances by the government the minimum number of 50 workers at a unit for registration of union had not been withdrawn. Non-availability of NIRC judges and sacking of trade union leaders from PTCL, KESC and other institutions are a clear evidence of lack government’s commitment to protecting workers rights, they added.

They alleged that participation of some hand-picked NGOs and trade union leaders in the sessions organised by the labour department was part of a strategy to silence opposition to the conference.