By Chris Slee
Sri Lankan workers are suffering badly under the free market policies of the United National Party government, which has ruled the country since 1977. Anton Marcus, joint secretary of the Industrial, Transport and General Workers Union, spoke to Green Left Weekly while in Melbourne for the Workers Change the World conference.
Privatisation has brought redundancies in formerly government-owned enterprises such as tea plantations and transport.
The government claims that 400,000 jobs have been created in the garment industry, but 600,000 jobs have been lost in the village-based hand loom industry, which has been destroyed by unrestricted imports.
Unions have been drastically weakened by severe repression. Often workers are sacked simply for joining a union. At one garment factory the whole work force of 300 women was sacked.
All export industries are subject to essential services legislation, which bans strikes.
The situation in the free trade zones is particularly repressive. A dispute earlier this year at Atlas Gloves (a partly Australian-owned company) was the first time a company operating in a free trade zone was forced to sign a settlement with its workers.
The initial dispute was over the workers' claim for the company to advance them 900 rupees ($20) to cover a festival period. After a three-day strike, management agreed to pay the 900 rupees, and also to pay wages for the period of the strike. It then violated the agreement, and locked the workers out for a month.
The workers gained support from unions, womens groups and other organisations. Australian unions gave support.
The workers were reinstated, except for 12 whose cases are subject to compulsory arbitration.
Marcus said efforts are being made to build a united front against the government's economic policies. One example is the Alternative Peoples Tribunal, which investigates and exposes the impact of these policies on workers and peasants.
The government has escalated its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who are fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
The intensification of the war is partly due to pressure on the government from Sinhalese chauvinist organisations, but is also useful to the government since it causes the main capitalist opposition parties to put aside their criticisms.
Marcus says there is no military solution to the conflict. It is necessary to recognise the right of self-determination for the Tamil people, including their right to form a separate state.
He says the LTTE is a nationalist organisation with no understanding of class politics. However, he emphasises that it is the government which is mainly responsible for the violence.
The government has also carried out massive repression in the south, murdering 30,000 people between 1987 and 1989 in its drive to crush the JVP (People's Liberation Front).
Some former members of the JVP have formed a new party. They reject both armed struggle and parliamentary politics, and have a perspective of mass struggle around economic issues and the environment.