May Day Message: Majyd Aziz President Employers Federation of Pakistan

May Day is globally observed by workers to pay homage and to commemorate the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labor movement during the 1886 event in Haymarket Square, Chicago. Pakistani workers passionately assemble all over the country and renew their pledges to demand freedom of association, rights, and their legitimate dues and privileges. The present-day working class leaders have gradually shunned the Cold War remnants of red flags and red salutes. Today’s workers are primarily concerned with holding on to their jobs, facing backbreaking inflation, worrying about the welfare of family, and, in subtle tones, demanding their rightful share in the fruits of progressive economy. May Day should also be the time for the two social partners, workers and employers, to look deep inside themselves and do their own introspection and soul-searching. Employers must develop an enlightened outlook that should be a manifestation of a benign concern for workers, because after all, these workers toil day and night to produce goods and services and fatten the employer’s coffers. Subjugating, threatening, or browbeating workers, just because they are paid, are an insult to humanity. Workers too have a responsibility to ensure that they do not perform their tasks in a lackadaisical manner that perpetuates low productivity, slack efficiency, and absenteeism. Workers must adopt the place of work as their own, since the job provides financial security, positive continuity of service, and future retirement emoluments. It is therefore proposed on this May Day that the two social partners should sit and vow to bring a change that is a win-win situation for all. As the principal Pakistani employers’ representative at ILO, it is my proposal that a serious, visionary, and far-reaching new Social Contract be agreed by them that would be a collective framework of recommendations and direction regarding the ever-changing global social, environmental and t