Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
For months since March 2022, mass protests engulfed the crisis-stricken Sri Lanka amid food and fuel shortages and skyrocketing inflation. Street demonstrations and political mobilisations by a range of social groups showed serious popular anger toward the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who (...)
Sri Lanka is home to some of the biggest garment manufacturers in the world, and while clothing exports have risen, so have COVID-19 infections among workers. We talk to people who face the daily choice of disease or impoverishment.
Sitting alone in a room containing two narrow beds and a (...)
Ceylon Federation of Labour (CFL) in a statement yesterday expressed its reservations over the proposed Colombo Port City Bill.
CFL General Secretary T.M.R. Rasseedin in the statement said that CFL was perturbed by the attempt being made to exempt companies operating in the Port City from (...)
Six Sri Lankan trade unions and workers’ organisations have filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, raising the issues in the due diligence and labour rights components of the Environment and Social Action Plan for the proposed US $ 50 (...)
In October, a series of FTZ (Free Trade Zone) workers who manufacture clothes for international markets such as the US, tested positive for COVID-19 in Sri Lanka. FTZs are populated with women from rural areas who, undermined by poverty and limited opportunities, are ‘pushed’ rather than (...)
Update: On 30 March 2021, Next replied to War on Want and Labour Behind the Label by letter, stating that Next will recognise the rights of the FTZ & GSEU union as representative of its workers in the NML [Next Management Limited] Katunayake Plant in Sri Lanka – and that Next will begin (...)
Threatening of women activists of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone by the officials of the Government was condemned by Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Ceylon Teachers Union at a press conference held last week at the CMU Office.
About two weeks ago several social activists (...)
In October this year, the country’s total workforce, stood at approximately 8,971,000 persons. The minimum wage rate of workers has remained static - at Rs.10,000/- a month, through 2019 and 2020. The cost of living on the other hand has increased many times over.
At today’s prices, it (...)
The past year, has been strangely, free of strike action. This is surprising given that the cost of living has been continuously rising, while at the same time wages of ordinary workers has been halved and large numbers have been laid off. This is in stark contrast to the status of workers in (...)
The JVP-led Ethera Api organisation, yesterday, accused the government of making use of the high number of COVID-19 infected cases, from Kuwait, as an excuse to avoid bringing home thousands of Lankans stranded overseas.
Addressing the media at the party headquarters, yesterday, former JVP (...)
In a letter to Presidential candidates, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Sajith Premadasa, five trade unions stated they had not paid attention to over two million employees in the formal private sector, and to those in the informal private sector, such as the private commuter (...)
Since coming into power in 2015, every Budget of the Yahapalana Government has faithfully advanced a labour law reform agenda. The 2019 Budget proposals attempt to frame labour law reforms as a solution to address the low participation of women in the workforce.
In the words of the Minister (...)
Plantation workers are demanding a living wage to be paid to workers in line with the existing cost of living in the country.
During discussions between the estate sector trade unions on Friday, the workers’ representatives said they want the Regional Plantation Companies (RPC) to increase (...)
A feminist perspective on social security in Sri Lanka. Social protection should recognise women’s full social and economic contribution, respect workers’ union rights and avoid the ‘big brother’ excesses of India’s aadhaar system.
International Labour Day on 1 May was honoured in Sri Lanka by several major trade unions and other Left organisations. This was despite the Government’s attempts to ‘shift’ May Day to 7 May, to prevent it from ‘overlapping’ with Vesak Poya. The decision to shift a day that honours labour rights in order to make space for a religious holiday – particularly one which is observed by the majority community – is not a neutral one.
Sri Lanka’s (...)
Long before the 1950s when Sri Lanka first began celebrating International Workers’ Day, the country’s workers still claimed this right by taking to the streets on the day, after a half day’s work, even at the cost of suffering pay cuts, as a result. To them, it was a day won by the workers of (...)
May Day celebrations have never clashed with the interests of or activities conducted during the Buddhist Vesak celebrations which often fall at the same time of the year. Nevertheless, without consultation, the President has unilaterally decided to postpone May Day on the pretext that there (...)
Trade unions and Sri Lankan plantation companies are bracing for a tough round of negotiations, starting later this month, on the once-in-two years wage hike amidst the controversial state takeover of hundreds of acres of plantation land which has resulted in lost jobs for workers.
While the (...)
A union leader, M Sujeewa Mangala, was found blindfolded and dumped by the roadside on February 1, three days after being abducted by unknown armed men.
Mangala, the vice-president of the All-Ceylon Telecommunication Employees Union, has been playing a leading role in the struggle of (...)
Organized labor has struggled to push demands and set the agenda during Sri Lanka’s democratic transition.
For the past two years, Sri Lanka has been undergoing a democratic transition. On January 8, 2015, the regime led by Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated by a diverse coalition made up of (...)
Review of Class, Patriarchy and Ethnicity on Sri Lankan Plantations: Two Centuries of Power and Protest by Kumari Jayawardena and Rachel Kurian (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan 2015; pp 364, INR 825)
Kumari Jayawardena and Rachel Kurian have uncovered the injustices heaped upon the plantation (...)
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