Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1999, published 88th ILC session (2000)

Right of Association (Agriculture) Convention, 1921 (No. 11) - Pakistan (Ratification: 1923)

The Committee takes note of the Government's report. The Committee would recall however that the Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions had considered that the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 1969 was not applicable to agricultural workers and that therefore the benefits of the present Convention were not available to them. The Committee also recalls that the Government in its previous reports had indicated that the agricultural sector was not properly organized due to illiteracy, poverty and other similar factors.

The Committee stresses that the present Convention applies to all workers engaged in agriculture. Even though agriculture is not expressly excluded from the Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 1969, it is not expressly included and the definitions given in the Ordinance can be interpreted as excluding small agricultural workers like self-employed farmers, sharecroppers, tenants and smallholders, from its application. In fact "employer" is defined in relation to an establishment which means "any office, firm, industrial unit, undertaking, shop or premises in which workmen are employed for the purpose of carrying on an industry, i.e. any business, trade, manufacture, calling, service, employment or occupation" (section 2). This restrictive definition does not include small agricultural holdings which do not run an establishment or farmers working on their own or with their family.

The Committee also notes that in the Payment of Wages Act 1936 as amended, although the definition of "industrial establishment" (section 2) includes expressly plantations, i.e. any estate which is maintained for the purpose of growing cinchona, rubber, coffee or tea establisments, on which less than 25 persons are employed for that purpose are not covered by the Act.

In the light of the foregoing situation, the Committee considers that there is an important gap in the legislation and the Government should take appropriate measures to modify existing statutory laws or enact new laws in relation to workers engaged in agriculture and their right to establish organizations, like industrial workers, in order to comply with its obligation to respect and fully apply this Convention.

Thus, the Committee would be grateful if the Government would be good enough to provide in its next report detailed information concerning the number of trade unions and associations of agricultural workers. It also requests information on legislative and other measures taken or contemplated to ensure specifically that those engaged in agriculture enjoy the same rights of association and combination as industrial workers, and to repeal any statutory or other provisions restricting such rights.

[The Government is asked to report in detail in 2000.]