Women shunned by the Labour Council
Women worker representatives have been thrown out of the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) this year and now the council is scrambling at the behest of the Minister to find women from the appointed trade unions to join in the discussions.
This issue came to the fore when the first meeting of the newly reconstituted NLAC was held on Tuesday where Labour Minister Manusha Nanayakkara had appointed an all-men committee to consider female participation on the council.
Women trade union representatives who voice their support towards upholding fair labour practices particularly in the factories have been thrown out of the only place that they can voice their opinion at the only tripartite forum – the NLAC.
Interestingly new labour law reforms have a number of aspects that target women participation in the labour force.
In this respect, Labour Commissioner Prabhath Chandrakeerthi insisted that such female representation at the NLAC should be put forward by the unions appointed to the NLAC.
He noted that Minister Nanayakkara has appointed a committee to consider female member participation at the NLAC.
Commenting on the reconstitution of the NLAC that a number of the previous member TUs had been moved out, he noted that according to the end report received by them these said trade unions do not have the required number of membership.
Mr. Chandrakeerthi pointed out that while these said trade unions can go ahead and complain to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) however they believe they have done the “right thing.”
Ms. Swasthika Arulingam, President of the Commercial Industrial Workers Union (CIWU) that is a part of the United Federation of Labour, had been the only female participant at the NLAC since 2021.
She explained that her representation helped raise the voice of women on the council where employers and the government were attempting to remove restrictions or rather protection granted to the women workers from engaging in night work and which is likely to be brought on through the new labour law reforms.
Ms. Arulingam pointed out that the predominant discourse as highlighted by the employers is that women participation in the labour force is low due to restrictions on night work. On the contrary it is employers who wanted to ensure that if men can do night work then women too should be allowed to be engaged in this same work.
“It’s a group of men who are going to decide the quota of women participation at the NLAC,” she said.
The newly reconstituted NLAC has representation of mainly public sector trade unions and lacks representations from the private sector unions. Four private sector TUs that were part of the Council previously are now excluded. These include trade unions that represent mainly the factory workers in the Free Trade Zones and other factory workers in other sectors.
Women make up close to 35 per cent of the country’s workforce.
The Business Times was unable to contact the Minister despite repeated attempts made to obtain a comment relating to the article.
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