JVP to strike with all its might

By Nalaka Nonis and Nadia Fazlulhaq

The JVP’s threat that 2007 would be a year of strikes was put into effect this month and the party’s trade unions will strike hard on Friday with an all-island general work stoppage.

Some 250 trade unions, including more than 80 controlled-by the JVP, will launch the general strike in several state institutions.
“We have given enough time and enough warning to the government. The salaries of ministers and MPs have been increased considerably but poor workers are left to struggle,” the JVP’s trade union strongman K. D. Lal Kantha charged.

Among the demands of the striking workers will be a cost-of-living allowance, rectification of salary anomalies and a distress loan scheme for public servants.

“Even the President promised to fulfil some of the demands, but he failed to do so. It’s unfair of the Govt to ask people to tighten their purse strings while the ministers and the MP’s get a higher pay,” he said.

Parliamentarian Lal Kantha who has been blasting the government for the past few months said the general strike on Friday was a one-day action but it was coming between the Poya holiday on Thursday and the weekend so that state institutions would be closed for four days.

So far this year, JVP-backed port trade unions, health sector unions and the Inter Company Employees’ Union have carried out protest campaigns in support of various demands.

Minister A. H. M. Fowzie who has been outspoken against JVP policies said yesterday pro-government unions would be working as usual on February 2 and he believed the JVP’s unjustified strike would be a flop.

He said the JVP’s demands were impractical and unfair because a salaries commission was considering new scales and all were duty bound to wait for its recommendations.

All Ceylon Trade Union Federation Additional secretary Premasiri Manawadu said their braches in key state institutions would be joining Friday’s strike and he was confident the action would be successful.

He accused the government of trying to silence the voice of the working people by appointing a powerless committee to look into the workers’ grievances.