GR in JR’s loincloth?

Monday 14th February, 2022

Unable to handle trade union disputes democratically, the government has taken a leaf out of the late President J. R. Jayewardene’s draconian rule book. Adopting his jackboot tactics, it has invoked a 1979 law to ban trade union action in the health and power sectors.

One should not be so naïve as to think it is the latest trade union battle in the health sector that has prompted the government to emulate the Old Fox. The Health Ministry could have solved the ongoing strike within a few hours. The striking health workers have indicated their willingness to have their problems sorted out through a discussion, but the health officials, especially the ex-military officer-turned Health Secretary, have refused to meet them. Perhaps, the government craftily drove the health unions to strike work so that it could ban strikes in the power sector, where it anticipates trouble anent its disastrous deal with the US-based New Fortress Energy company over the Yugadanavi power station, and the LNG supply.

What the government ought to realise is that it is counterproductive to suppress workers’ trade union rights because such dictatorial measures cause a pressure build-up in the polity. President Jayewardene made that mistake in July 1980, when he crushed a general strike and sacked more than 40,000 workers with a stroke of the pen; some of his victims committed suicide. (The JVP, which was playing political footsie with the UNP at the time, pulled out of the strike at the eleventh hour on some flimsy pretext.) Vasudeva Nanayakkara, one of the leaders who organised the 1980 strike, was arrested. Mahinda Rajapaksa, as an Opposition activist at the time, threw his weight behind the hapless strikers. It will be interesting to see the reaction of PM Rajapaksa and Minister Nanayakkara to the repressive measures their government has adopted to suppress trade unions.

There is no gainsaying that trade unions must act responsibly, especially during national crises. This is not the time for strikes to win pay hikes. Teachers and principals set a very bad example by taking to the streets, demanding their pound of flesh, and the government granted their wish; it is only natural that other state sector workers, affected by salary anomalies caused by the teachers’ pay hike, are on the warpath.

Sri Lankan trade unions tend to act irresponsibly at times, and forget their duties all the time. But President Gotabaya Rajapaksa may recall that they fully cooperated with his elder brother’s government during the Vanni war. Even the unruly private bus operators behaved, making it possible for the UPFA administration to concentrate on the war effort. Given the enormity of the crisis we are facing on every front, the country must be put on a war footing. If the President gets trade unionists around the table, explains the current situation to them and undertakes to solve their problems when the economy recovers, they will listen. Most of all, there should be a holistic approach to rectifying salary issues in the public sector. Ad hoc remedies have only worsened them.

Prime Minister Rajapaksa, a former Labour Minister, is one of the few government politicians who are mature enough to handle trade union issues diplomatically and work out compromise formulae. He ought to tell his family members that they should not run the government according to their whims and fancies.

What JRJ did in tackling trade union issues was like using a loincloth to control dysentery, as a local saying goes. He only made a bigger mess of the situation by using draconian laws to suppress workers’ legitimate struggles; people’s resentment grew as a result and found expression in destructive ways. The country experienced bloodbaths and years of lawlessness, on his watch, with the JVP tapping pent-up public anger to fuel its second uprising. On seeing the manner in which the incumbent administration has sought to handle trade union struggles, one wonders whether the incumbent President is using JRJ’s loincloth, as it were.