Georgia has come a long way since the 1990s, a decade marred by civil war, political instability, and a faltering economy. But there’s one area where the country has, quite literally, remained stuck in that distant past: its minimum wage. Georgia’s private sector minimum wage was last updated in 1999, and currently stands at ₾20 ($7.50) per month. That makes it one of the lowest monthly minimum wages in the world about enough to buy a few liters of milk. Despite broad popular support for
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Labour rights in Naya Pakistan
Millions of people in Pakistan are working on measly wages and in unsafe conditions
The writer is an academic and researcher. He is also the author of Development, Poverty, and Power in Pakistan, available from Routledge
Labour exploitation remains a major cause for the glaring disparities that we see around the world, including in our own country. Millions of people in Pakistan are working on measly wages and in unsafe conditions. Despite lip service by those in power, labour abuses remain rife across our urban and rural areas.
The dismal ground realities confronting our poor workforce are caused by a paucity of state regulatory capacity and the perpetuation of market-led policies which give precedent to profit maximisation by local and transnational business interests, instead of ensuring provision of decent work opportunities for the working classes.
Labourers make bricks at a factory in Karachi. -AFP/File
LAHORE: Pakistan has overall scored 51 points out of 100 at the Decent Work Check tool of the Labour Rights Index (LRI) that covers 115 countries across the globe. Finland and Lithuania top the LRI with both scoring 96 points.
The LRI for the year 2020 contains 10 indicators each with five legal questions and has been compiled by the Netherlands-based Centre for Labour Research and Wage Indicator Foundation.
Pakistan lags behind neighbouring India, Myanmar, Iran, and China which have scored 69, 63, 69.5 and 71 points, respectively. However, it leads Bangladesh by three and Sri Lanka by 0.5 points. Interestingly, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, the states which got independence in 1991 from Soviet Union, have scored 80 plus points in the survey, four points better than Russian Federation.