LPP strongly condemn the act of harassment on the workers of Grant Wheels Employees Union in Karachi by the administration of the Grant Wheel factory and SITE police station who are supporting Grant Wheel management by arresting and harassing workers of the factory.

Grant Wheel management are harassing permanent workers and threaten them to expel them from the factory in which SITE police station is also involved.

Management of Grant Wheel registered false allegation on the union in SITE police station. Police arrested three workers from the factory which latter bailed out by the court. It is the routine of SITE police that they going in factory to arrest the union members, who put some demand to the management, and threaten them which spread fear among the workers.

Different unions in NTUF, LEF, LPP and party’s women activist visited the SITE police station several time to protest against the police actions and for bail of the workers. Police officer Mr. Rafiq Rao, SHO SITE police station ensured that they will not arrest and harass more workers from the factory but police as usual worked for the management and to protect the capitalist not the workers, they didn’t stop their bad act, taking bribe from the Grant Wheel factory management and harass the workers.

Workers of the Grant Wheel, NTUF, LPP, LEF and dozens of unions in meeting decided to organize a protest “Dharna” against the SITE police station and Grand Wheel management on Tuesday 23^rd December 2008 at Habib Bank Chowrangi (SITE area) at 4pm.

We are appealing to all workers especially from the SITE area, trade unions and federations, CBA unions, human and civil right activist to participate in the Dharna (sit in) and show solidarity with the Grant Wheel workers.

In Solidarity

Zehra Khan

Labour Education Foundation

Dear All,

Today (Dec 23^rd), LPP, in conjunction with the National Trade Union Federation and various unions from the SITE in Karachi, organized a protest in order to condemn police harassment of the workers of the Grant Wheels Employees Union. It was well-attended—in addition to the activists and leaders from the LPP and NTUF, roughly over a hundred workers from various factories braved harassment and intimidation to show their solidarity (a few pictures are attached).

Fundamentally, the issue is quite clear: the police of the SITE station have been harassing activists of the Grant Wheels Employees Union, arresting three after the management of the Grant Wheel factory registered false cases against them. These workers have been struggling against moves by management to employ them on a more temporary basis. (Please ask the LPP comrades in PR for further details)

I wanted to relay this event to the Peoples Resistance (PR) email list for two reasons. First, insofar as it represents a site of struggle in our own city, I think it behooves us as activists to take note and express our solidarity, even if only individually.

But second, and perhaps more importantly, it also raises, theoretically, the question of how PR hopes to make itself relevant to Karachi, as a whole. It’s often been lamented that the group, and indeed the lawyer’s movement more generally, remains confined (both in composition and in agenda) to a particular, ’educated’ class. Though it’s of course understandable if PR, as a group, is hesitant to involve itself in labor disputes and related struggles, I here only mean to suggest that the task of making PR more meaningful depends, at least in part, on the group’s ability to constructively engage the realities of the common Karachi-ite. It’s also in that sense, then, that I forward this—because it’s important to remember the nature of the things that other people in this city are agitating for.

in peace,

Adaner Usmani