RECORDER REPORT

HYDERABAD: Government has been urged to fix Rs500/maund wage for cotton pickers in upcoming picking season as inflation is going up day by day.

This was demanded by the representatives of the 10 registered trade unions of women cotton pickers from Matiari district in a meeting held at SCF office Hyderabad. The meeting was organized by Sindh Community Foundation, a non–profit organization working for the protection of the rights of the women cotton pickers.

The meeting was aimed to discuss the issues of the wages, poor working conditions and social safety nets for the cotton workers.

Javed Hussain of the SCF presided over the meeting and said that the picking season of cotton will start soon but no such framework of fixing the wages yet started for the informal agriculture workers. He said that only giving the right to association do not address the issues of cotton pickers under the SIRA but it should be coupled with inclusion of these workers in Worker Welfare Fund, social security and other social and health safety nets.

He said that these women workers also face miss-calculated wage as they are unable to calculate the wage per day as per picked cotton. He said that the SCF will soon launch literacy program for these workers so that they would be able to read and write and calculate wage properly.

Aisha Agha, Program Officer SCF, said that as these workers living below poverty line and work hard in the fields. She added that there should be legislative cover to provide these workers with better working environment providing drinking water, mask and gloves.

Sadori, President of a trade union of cotton pickers in Village, Yameen Ahpan said that growers are only bound with the cotton and government is only concern about the clean cotton but the women cotton pickers work in very worst working environment.