Heed workers’ cry!

Thursday 16th March, 2023

There seems to be no end in sight to the ongoing trade union struggle, which has dealt a crippling blow to the diseased economy; the government and the warring trade unions continue to be at loggerheads over several issues such as the new tax regime, which has sent many workers reeling. Instead of trying to resolve the protracted conflict, government politicians are exuding arrogance from every pore, bellowing rhetoric, issuing threats and provoking workers. They seem to think that they could retain their hold on power with the help of the police and the army.

When Mahinda Rajapaksa was the Minister of Labour in the Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga government, he rightly said there were no winners in a strike, for, in the final analysis, the entire country lost due to work stoppages; he therefore strove to get strikers around the table and arrive at negotiated settlements as far as possible, and his efforts yielded the desired results, in most cases. Curiously, he is doing precious little to settle the current trade union disputes, and looks on while the government is riding roughshod over the protesting trade unions. He should, at least, tell the ruling party politicians to exercise control over their dirty tongues.

Taxes are a fact of life in any society, and they are not so much inevitable as necessary. Nobody should refuse to pay them. That is the bottom line. But everyone has a right to know how his or her tax money is spent, and hence the need for governments to ensure transparency anent taxation. Equally, public resistance is to be expected when rulers use taxes as an instrument of exploitation and/or are seen to be helping themselves to state funds to live in clover. It is only natural that everyone expects something in return for the taxes he or she pays.

Thus, it may be seen that public trust in a tax system, the honesty of those at the levers of power, social benefits, and the affordability of taxes are prerequisites for tax compliance. We are afraid that the Sri Lankan tax system lacks these attributes, and this may explain why so many workers are on the warpath, demanding a downward revision of the new tax regime; they are not refusing to pay taxes.

The Opposition, especially the SJB, has proposed alternative ways and means of increasing the country’s tax revenue without jacking up the PAYE tax, etc., unconscionably; it has shown how to achieve that end. This, we believe, could be the way out. The government ought to heed these alternative proposals instead of bulldozing its way through and plunging the country into chaos. The IMF will not mind a compromise formula as long as it does not lead to a decrease in the country’s overall tax revenue. The government must soften its stand and grant some relief to the protesting workers if it is to prevent a continuous strike, which will sound the death knell for the ailing economy.

Another reason for the workers’ ire, which drives them to extreme actions, is that the government lacks legitimacy. The incorrigible crooks who bankrupted the country by stealing and wasting public funds to live high on the hog, indulging in corruption at the expense of the public and mismanaging the economy are still in power and have not mended their ways. The Sri Lankan economy is like a gang rape victim whose custody has been entrusted to the rapists themselves! It has to be removed from the clutches of those who ruined it if it is to recover fully.

The public must be given an opportunity to vent their pent-up anger democratically by exercising their franchise. The government has blundered by derailing the local government elections, which would have acted as a safety valve to defuse tensions in the polity. It will be a colossal mistake for the government to resort to strong-arm tactics in a bid to neutralise resistance to its dictatorial actions.