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LABOUR-NEPAL: Workers’ Friend or Foe?

Marty Logan

KATHMANDU, Nov 6 2006 (IPS) - Nepal’s government says it is poised to give some protection to the majority of its workers who labour in the informal sector but a bill now circulating in government would remove some rights of employees in ‘special economic zones’.

The bill will next be sent to the House of Representatives for consideration, Shengjie Li, director of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Nepal, told IPS. He received a copy of the draft document Thursday but was waiting for it to be translated and had no details, he added in an interview Friday.

“Unions said they were not in favour of it because workers are not allowed to assume their right to organise. If that’s the case, I think the ILO would naturally intervene because this is not in line with ILO Convention 87,” said Li.

If the unions’ interpretation is correct, it would be hard to imagine the government fulfilling State Minister of Labour Ramesh Lekhak’s recent pledge to provide protection to informal sector workers, he added.

“It would raise a lot of concerns,” suggested Li. “If you don’t allow (formal sector) workers in the special economic zones to organise themselves, than how can you allow the (informal sector) workers to organise?”

As of 2004, more than 96 percent of Nepalis worked in the informal sector, where they were not protected by any form of social security, according to the ILO.

In an interview, Lekhak told IPS that the government will amend the Labour Act, but he would not reveal details. “We want to follow a socialist pattern of economy,” said Lekhak. “The government will convince employers to protect workers’ rights and to increase wages and also convince workers to let things run smoothly,” he added.

The minister is a member of the negotiating team now holding talks with former Maoist rebels. A deal between the two sides is expected soon, following which an interim government including Maoists would be formed. Next June, elections to a constituent assembly that will approve a new constitution will be held, according to an agreement made in October.

Government and Maoist leaders declared ceasefires soon after they joined forces to lead hundreds of thousands of chanting protesters onto the nation’s streets in April to protest the direct rule of King Gyanendra. Faced with a rumoured bloodbath at his palace gates, the monarch backed down and restored the lower house of parliament.

Changes to the Labour Act are waiting until the former rebels join the government, said Lekhak, “because they might not agree with the changes”.

In October, the signing of an extradition treaty between Nepal and its southern neighbour India was cancelled just before Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula was to fly to New Delhi. The reason reported by local media: Maoist leader Prachanda objected to the plan.

The former royal government tried to amend labour laws but the project stalled after protests from unions. Among the contentious provisions was a section on special economic zones (also known as export processing zones) that union leaders said allowed workers to be fired with just 15 days notice and permitted a single factory to be designated “special”.

Nepal’s major union leaders are in Vienna this week to witness the birth of the International Trade Union Confederation. Earlier, one of them told IPS that Lekhak’s pledge made in September to guarantee rights of informal sector workers was “just words”.

One group of workers who need protection on many fronts are the tens of thousands of women who toil in the shady dance bars and restaurants that mushroomed in the capital Kathmandu and other cities of this South Asian nation during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.

“Yesterday some women from a restaurant in Thamel (Kathmandu’s tourist hub) came here. Maoists had suddenly arrived and forced the owner to close saying that he was doing bad things. They hit the women and chased them away and they came and asked us ‘what do we do now’?” says Shobha Yadav, counsellor at the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC).

Her office offers health, counselling and skills training to women who work in the 110 bars and restaurants in the Gongabu neighbourhood north of the city centre. Ninety per cent of them come from villages outside the Kathmandu Valley and many are illiterate and ignorant of city life and of sex.

“Many have sexual diseases,” said Yadav in an interview. “They can’t wear condoms because their customers don’t like them and they don’t know how to say ‘no’àOur main goal is to strengthen these women so that they can lobby on their own behalf, so that no one can dominate them; not their customers and not their bosses,” she added.

WOREC is not advocating for a labour union for the women but some protection should be provided by the government and police said Yadav.

The ILO’s Li said it is unrealistic to expect Nepal to raise its labour standards to international norms immediately but that a partnership between business and labour concerning the informal sector, as in Sri Lanka, could be a useful step.

“Both employers and workers know that better conditions produce better productivity. Say a worker is injuredàin principle the owner must compensate him but if he doesn’t, then the workers might go on strike,” added Li.

He said the ILO would like to start a long-term training programme in Nepal on co-operative industrial relations and will meet with government, labour and business leaders, along with donors like the World Bank, in January.