We come across news reports almost daily about successive governments’ mishandling of the economy, corruption scandals, leadership crisis, injustice to the poor, brutality, lawlessness and such other things. But capitalist manipulation and worker’s exploitation, rather subjugation, in the private sector is a topic not discussed by the media; at least the news media.
I worked in the private sector, a school for special children, for three years, and those years were nothing less than bonded slavery and a mission to make ‘the master’ happy even if one had to earn a petty yearly increment of, say, two to three thousand rupees.
There was a race among the employees to be the most appreciated one even in a small meeting or get-together because they were conditioned to imagine themselves on the top of the hit list that ‘the master’ maintained. Before anyone gets it wrong, let me clarify that there was no gender issue involved. The boss was a 50-year-old woman and 95 per cent of the workforce was female.
The criteria for promotion along with sustaining the master-slave relationship comprised dressing up, wearing Western clothes, talking as an ‘influential’, bragging upon successful handling of parents, and stopping their interference even if it was necessary for their children’s wellbeing. The one who disobeyed ‘the master’ was bound to face planned torture, shrinking workspace freedom, blockage of opinion, and getting insulted for being ‘opinionated’.
This is not to suggest that the said institution was alone in its misery-causing ways. Not at all. It happens to be a routine practice at small-scale businesses run by the elite. They practice tax evasion, deduct salaries for this thing or that, fire people on the basis of whim and fancy, and praise the best ‘captive’.
After facing exploitation and motional torture, I finally quit. As it turned out, a while later I became part of the government sector.
Having had exposure to both sectors, I found the public sector way healthier than the private sector, because when a number of people frame policies sitting in parliament, passing bills with majority, the end result promotes diversity and flexibility with defined administrative hierarchy.
A private-sector entity frames policies to suit one’s interest, including the profit margin. There is clearly a need for the government to intervene to set things right in the private sector at least for tax evasion practices, if nothing else.
The Constitution guarantees rights to every citizen of the country. Teachers working in private schools happen to be the citizens of the same state. If that
is not under doubt, what stops the Consti- tution and its protectors and implemen-ters from making the intervention?
NIDA RAFAQAT
LAHORE
