LSSP wants the Government to provide food to the hungry as its first priority

May Day Message

Working people also continue to suffer a loss of income and a drop in real wages, while at the same time facing a steep rise in the price of goods, especially essentials, through capitalist manipulation, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) said in a message to mark May Day.

The capitalists are getting richer while the workers are getting poorer. In Sri Lanka, malnutrition has risen to 18% and the number of families below the poverty line is 60%. It is hunger for the many and luxury for the elite few. Therefore, the celebration of this May Day is a prelude to overcoming these problems as well as the defeat of the threats of the Covid 19 epidemic, attempt (via MCC and SOFA agreements) of the USA to make Sri Lanka a neo-colony and military base, and get buried in the IMF led debt trap, LSSP leader, Prof. Tissa Vitarana said.

The capitalist class is faced with a global economic and social crisis, but without bearing the burden it is passing this on to the working people. The capitalists should support the workers out of the massive profits made in the past from the sweat of the workers, and share some of the burden with the Government, which is attempting to help the workers. But instead, to preserve the profits made or being made, factories and workplaces are being closed down, staff is being thrown out of employment and salaries are being cut, most often without compensation, the message further said.

This is occurring in the advanced capitalist countries like the USA as well as in small countries like Sri Lanka. But the impact is worse in small countries as the purchase of goods from our countries by the developed countries is also on the decline. Thus, when the USA/UK companies cut the purchase of garments from Sri Lanka our factories suffer and they even have to shut down. In addition the capitalist middlemen (such as traders) keep on raising their profits, so that both producers and consumers suffer. The outcome is a continual steep rise in prices and hunger for the vast mass of the people, it noted.

The LSSP demands that the Government provides food for the hungry as its first priority. The indirect tax burden on the poor should also be reduced by getting the super-rich to share the burden by increasing the upper limit of income tax from the paltry 14% to at least 50%, preferably 70% (as NM did in 1972). To control prices, revive the Multi-purpose Cooperatives, specially of farmers, and sell directly to better functioning consumer cooperatives, as in 1972, getting rid of the middleman’s profit.

The state must engage in the bulk of trade by reviving the Food Department, the CWE and Sathosa. If the private sector continues to profiteer, then apply the “solidarity economic policy”, where in all failed enterprises, private (plantations included) or Government, the ownership is transferred to the employees on the solidarity cooperative principle. Then we can have a really happy May Day, replacing capitalist ownership by employee/worker ownership, the message noted.

The LSSP extended its warm greetings and best wishes to the working class of Sri Lanka, and the rest of the world on May Day. Our fraternal greetings go to all political parties and trade unions defending worker’s rights. The role of trade unions and the respect for labour laws that the LSSP achieved have been undermined by the “contractor system of employment” now in vogue. The fight to abolish this system is a major objective of this May Day, it added.