Unions increasingly have more role to play in pandemic
View(s):At a time when the world of work is moving towards a shorter working day, Sri Lanka is illegally increasing the hours of work with no additional compensation for the extra hour put in, totally disregarding its own labour laws, says the Ceylon Federation of Labour (CFL).
In a message to mark May Day (which was for the second time sans meetings and rallies on May 1), the CFL said: “Sri Lanka is back to old times with the current health crisis being used as a pretext to attack labour’s hard fought rights and privileges.”
It said the deteriorating conditions of labour has resulted in a significant number of working people being reduced to poverty with no income security. Sri Lanka has the lowest minimum wage in the region and globally only 16 countries have minimum wages that are less than that of Sri Lanka. Real wages are declining day to day as a consequence of inflationary pressures on the Sri Lankan economy.
More and more people are in jobs earning incomes which do not guarantee them a decent life. Wage rates trail behind increases in productivity with whatever gains being shifted to the direction of capital. Sri Lankan labour laws and productivity schemes do not endeavour to secure for workers a share of the gains realised by enhanced worker productivity.
“Women face multiple discrimination at work. Weekly hours of work are far above the global average. Arbitrary increases in permissible involuntary overtime to 720 hours per annum from a previous 100 hours, extended shifts and night work that impact on their health and well-being, the indiscriminate use of surveillance technology invading their privacy and impinging on their fundamental freedoms are current features of the private sector employment which do not provide women with a conducive setting to work,” the CFL said.
The traits of a gig economy are widely prevalent in the jobs that are now being created. Precarious work and non-standard forms of labour are on the increase with important consequences for unionisation, worker representation and their voice and rights at work. Domestic workers and workers in the informal sector for all practical purposes fall outside the scope of the law. The modest safeguards available for employees in contract employment and precarious work have been whittled down, making it crucial for trade unions to concentrate on ensuring decent work conditions in such jobs through implementing measures that improve wages, expanding and enforcing regulations relating to contract labour, their safety and health, strengthening their social security and welfare and ensuring their voice and rights at work, it said.
“On May Day 2021, the CFL calls upon organised labour to exert pressure on their leaders not to fall prey to the glib talk, specious arguments and machinations of capitalist employers to rob them of their hard won gains and to march forward in principled unity together with other sections of the working class in defence of their rights and privileges. The uneven impact of the pandemic sweeping across the globe on the working class the promotion of ethno-religious nationalism and increased militarisation resorted to by the regime in power for its own survival make it even more necessary today to focus on class issues in order to defend, consolidate and advance the interests of Sri Lanka’s toiling masses,” the statement said.