In September 2012, Ali Enterprises, a textile factory complex in Karachi, was burnt to the ground. The factory employed 1500 men, women and children. At least 258 workers, many of whom were in the factory to collect their wages, were incinerated. Though labour accidents in Pakistan scarcely make the news, the worst industrial disaster in the country's history did breach the silence. Politicians appeared on television to shed tears for the fallen, newspapers ran heart-rending accounts of the tragedy, and the government announced millions of rupees worth of compensation for the victims' families. The only voice missing in this clamour was that of the worker. No trade union took to the streets; no worker turned on their master. Workers' dissent had long ago been choked into silence.
Years of suppression and a changed political milieu have altered Pakistan's labour dynamic. Organised labour is in decay as most unions have failed to evolve and provide a contemporary voice to workers. Veteran unionists say it was the state's collusion with the industrialist class that crushed them, and even now, the few remaining unions face questions regarding their relevance and ability to survive. The ongoing story of WAPDA, Pakistan's once powerful Water and Power Development Authority, is instructive. WAPDA's dismemberment and large-scale retrenchment of workers coincided with a larger pattern of state coffers being used to benefit private companies. The result is the steady erosion of labour rights in Pakistan.
Modernisation, in theory
By the mid-1960s, Pakistan's industrial sector accounted for 20 percent of the country's GDP and employed about 18 percent of its workforce. The state's numerous enterprises, including WAPDA, meant that it emerged as one of the country's biggest employers. Enamoured by modernisation theories gaining traction in newly decolonised states, General Ayub Khan realised his development fantasies in WAPDA's expansion. As electrification became the poster child for Khan's state-led march to modernity, thousands of settlements were connected to the national grid and WAPDA became the biggest state-owned enterprise in the country. The employees of WAPDA benefited from the mushrooming of trade unions that bargained for improved wages and better working conditions.
National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) General Secretary Nasir Mansoor says that this period of the workers' struggle needs to be understood in the context of the Cold War. The Cold War years were the heyday of trade unions in Pakistan, when the labourer had the support of the Eastern Bloc in opposition to industrialists being aided by the West. The slogans of solidarity, mobilisation and democratic reform resounded throughout Pakistan, from the railways to the nascent telecommunications network, all the way to WAPDA.