Deals with labour contractors can't end trade union rights: SC.

Byline: Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD -- The Supreme Court has held that a contract between employers and labour contractors could not be used as a device to deprive the contract workers of their legitimate and fundamental right of forming union or becoming a part of it.

The judgement was authored by Justice Maqbool Baqar who headed a two-member bench that heard an appeal instituted by Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) against the Dec 7, 2018 ruling of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The issue pertained to the question whether a worker/workman engaged for rendering service in an establishment was eligible to be registered or enlisted as a voter to participate in a referendum for choosing a Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) in that establishment or not.

The controversy emerged after the Registrar of Trade Union approved an application of the registered trade union at the SSGC for including the names of their members who were contract employees in the list of voters before holding a referendum.

Apex court decides SSGC's appeal against 2018 ruling of IHC

The trade union, which was formed with an aim to create harmony amongst the workers to maintain cordial relations with the employer, management and to ameliorate the working relations of the members and workers in the establishment, had contended before the registrar that the company had employed more than 3,000 workers on a contract basis. They had been performing their duties on different posts of permanent nature and out of them 500 employees were members of the trade union, it claimed.

They were engaged by the SSGC directly or through some labour contractors, the trade union representative had contended before the registrar, adding that since those workers were performing their duties on the posts which were of permanent nature, they were entitled to be included in the voters' list of the trade union. Not including their names in the list would amount to depriving them of their fundamental rights, they contended.

The SSGC through its counsel Asim Iqbal argued before the Supreme Court that since the employees, sought to be registered as voters, were not the employees of the company, rather of

manpower/labour contractors, such employees in view of Section 19(5) of the Industrial Relations Act (IRA) 2012 could not be registered as voters.

In terms of the law, it was contended, only those workers who had completed three-month service as direct employees of the company were eligible to participate in the...