Workers at Master Tiles & Ceramic Industries Limited’s factory have been protesting outside the facility for the past four months because the company has been unable to pay their wages.
Master Tiles, established in 1982, first gained widespread recognition in 2020 when one of the group’s scions got married to the Lahore family that owns Jalal Sons in an opulent and celebrity-studded ceremony that is thought to have cost Rs 2 billion.
The manufacturing workers had been negotiating with management about receiving their salaries, which hadn’t been paid in the previous four months. Before Eid, the employer had guaranteed that the workers would receive their pay. The management agreed to release Rs 10,000 for each worker to appease the workers, with the remaining amount to be paid after Eid. However, the wages were not released. Workers planned a protest, screaming anti-CEO slogans after the promise was breached, and Sheikh Mehmood Iqbal was the target of their chants.
Speaking to Profit, one of the workers of the factory, Muhammad Bilal informed that for the last four months, on the one hand, the salary has not been paid, while on the other hand, the workers are being threatened to prevent them from protesting. “Sheikh Mehmood, the owner of Master Tiles, has withheld our salaries for four months. Although Sheikh is also a big donor to Tablighi Jamaat, he refuses to pay the wages to the workers. We are constantly protesting for payment of salaries and the bosses are threatening us with severe punishment,” he exclaimed.
“We also protested outside the Master Tiles factory in Kamonki but the owners did not care, instead they started threatening us with the police. Sheikh spent around 200 crores on his daughter’s wedding but they have not paid the salaries of their 4000 employees for the last four months as tomorrow is Eid. They are not billionaires, they are trillionaires, their daughter’s wedding took place in 2020 and was called the most expensive wedding in Pakistan. Maulana Tariq Jameel taught Nikah and the wedding guests were given gifts wrapped in gold foil. Their factories are state of the art but they are very cruel when it comes to paying the workers,” he lamented.
Muhammad Muzamil, another factory worker, informed Profit that the owners and management had promised to make some payments to the workers before Eid but now the management has reneged on this promise citing ‘poor factory conditions’.
“So, the workers staged a dharna at the factory gate as a protest, but instead of fulfilling their very legitimate demand, the management is threatening them. The employees also protested by blocking the GT Road for not getting their salaries, but this news could not be aired on any TV channel because it is a heavily advertisement party. Now the owners have come down on open hooliganism with the full support of the entire district administration, Commissioner Gujranwala and the police.
“Yesterday, after the continuous protest of the workers, the factory management announced the payment of only RS 10,000 per person and made false promises to pay the rest after Eid. Due to the dire need for money on Eid, the workers were currently willing to receive a payment of ten thousand per person, but the cruelty is that this payment was also made to the same workers who were present on spot. Later, when the rest of the workers came to collect this money, the factory management flatly refused and threatened them with serious consequences, filing cases and arrests through the police, forcing them to return home empty-handed,” he informed.
Some employees did, however, also tell Profit that they planned to keep protesting the factory owners until their wages were not paid. On the other side, Master Tiles’ failure to pay its employees over Eid also became viral on social media.
