Pakistani workers rally on May Day, protest price hike

LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) - Thousands of Pakistani workers held May Day rallies in major cities across the country demanding increased wages in the wake of recent price hikes, witnesses said. The largest rally was in eastern city of Lahore where an estimated 10,000 workers waving red flags marched in the streets shouting slogans against price increases, poor working conditions, low wages and the privatisation of state enterprises, organisers and witnesses said on Monday. The protestors shouted slogans and torched an effigy representing price hikes. Similar rallies were held in the cities of Karachi, Multan and Faisalabad where trade union leaders demanded wage increases and protested price hikes following an increase in the price of petroleum products. Labour leaders in Multan demanded that the minimum monthly wage, currently around 3,500 rupees (around 58 dollars), be linked to price of 10 grams gold (0.3 ounces), around 200 dollars. May Day has come amid spiraling prices of oil, food and other daily items which have increased pressure on the government. President Pervez Musharraf in his May Day message said the government was committed to improving conditions for workers. "I would like to assure the working community that the government is committed to the cause of labour and is taking all possible steps to improve the economic conditions for workers," Musharraf said.

Pakistan has a workforce of more than 45 million people among a population of 150 million, according to government economic reports.
From: YahooForum:- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk.

May Day, Lahore 2006.

There are wild rumours circulating around the left about how

Communist Workers & Peasants Party

Pakistan

(CMKP) leader Taimur Rahman was beaten up in the May Day rally in Lahore. One version has it that Taimur was beaten up by the police, another has it that he was beaten up by the workers of Pakistan Workers Confederation, yet another newspaper report gives a picture of Taimur Rahman being pushed by members of the working women�s organization and reads that there was a fight between male and female workers at the May Day rally. Some of these rumours have circulated all the way from Lahore to London to Karachi and back to Lahore. Fascinating as these stories may be, let me once and for all put all these rumours to rest and give you the real low down on May 1^st 2006.

First, of all, it was never a big secret that Hassan Nasir was an identity not an underground name. I am Taimur Rahman. When we began writing on this forum we all selected an identity. I chose Hassan Nasir because he was a class-traitor (as I consider myself to be) and a symbol of communism in Pakistan (as I aspire to become one day), others chose Bhagat Singh, Vidrohi, I see red, Red Klashnikov, etc. etc. etc. Everyone active on the left knows who we are. My socialist articles appear regularly in main stream papers, interviews and articles by others have been published about my work and the party; my students, fellow faculty members, friends, acquaintances, reactionaries and progressives; from Sussex University to Lahore, the villages of Anjuman Mazareen Punjab to Hashtnagar, who does not know that I am a member of the Communsit Mazdoor Kissan Party and proud to be a die hard communist? I have announced it in no uncertain terms in every single political meeting I have ever attended. To paraphrase Marx from the Communist Manifesto: I disdain to conceal my views. Hassan Nasir is my pen name, not my secret identity or underground name.

For the last several years CMKP-Lahore always participates with the rally of the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation and Working Women�s Organization on May 1^st. This year was no exception and we made preparations for three buses of party workers to join us at Simla Pehari at 10 AM. In addition to CMKP workers we also invited Bhatta Workers, the Anjuman Mazarin Punjab, students, intellectuals and general sympathizers. We prepared 10,000 leaflets entitled �Seven years of Musharraf�s Government�, �Balochistan, we don�t need oppression, we need democratic rights�, a leaflet on the end of the Peshgi system of Bhatta workers, one on the crisis in the Sugar industry and several others. We also published and took along about 300 copies of Surkh Savera, dozens of banners, about a hundred placards of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao.

Last year we made a significant impact on the May Day demonstrations by forming an extremely well organized blocked (with arms linked) in which everyone was wearing the exact same CMKP t-shirt. The sight of a 100 odd people walking in a well organized block with linked arms wearing a huge hammer and sickle on red shirts, distributing more leaflets than the rest of the march put together, had a strong impact on the May Day march which can become quite chaotic from over-enthusiasm.

This year, however, we tried something even better. We rented a massive music system and loaded it on the back of a Shehzore lorry; for power we utilized a generator that was loaded on the passenger seat of the lorry; dressed up the lorry in CMKP colours and posters, and organized a mobile music concert of revolutionary music. The band was led ably by Shahram Azhar on vocals, I was playing the guitar, and two session players were playing a drum machine and a dhol. Aside from the usual Jalib, Faiz, Bhagat, Sufi music and other revolutionary songs, we prepared a new revolutionary version of Abrar ul Haq�s song �Mal o Mal�.
FROM:
CMKP Website:- http://cmkp.tk