Pakistan's development at 7 pc seems justified when one looks at the high rise buildings, new residential schemes and construction going on across Karachi metropolitan. In fact construction sector contributes 2.4 pc in GDP of Pakistan.
But it is hard to contemplate the unsafe conditions the 4.5 million construction workers are working on daily basis. It makes 7.3 pc of total workforce of 61 million in Pakistan. Most of the workers are season based with average wage of 12032 rupees per month. They work project to project and shuttle around. Most of them belong to uneducated poor backgrounds from rural Sindh, south Punjab and KP. Due to their lack of education they can not negotiate high wages and entitlements like social security, medical care and paid leave. Construction sector is second unsafe with regards health and safety risks after agriculture industry. Health and safety injuries have bounced from 14.1 pc in 2013-2014 to 16.3 in 2014-2015. There are no plans by employers in place to increase the skill set of workers and educate them about the safety and health risks. Informality in industry has increased from 13.8 pc in 2005 to 16.4 pc in 2015. Subcontractors do not enforce use of protective equipment and safety and health standards of ILO. Although lack of education and ignorance of workers also contributes to compromise of enforcement but its doesnt absolve the employers from their responsibility. There is a troika when it comes to issue resolution of construction or any sector in the world. State representatives, employers and labor unions. Unfortunately laws have prevented such unions from either working fully functional or altogether eliminating the chance of building such unions. Therefore the troika is broken and workers rights are not safeguarded which results in workers safety and heath catastrophes across the country.
Source: http://www.dawn.com/news/1258391/dangerous-industry
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