Keeping the Unions Alive
Description
By Prashanthi Jayasekara
On 18 May 2015
It is no coincidence that the labour movement has waned, as neoliberal economic policies have gained ground in Sri Lanka. Apathy among many young people towards the labour movement is one reason for this. According to the National Youth Survey (2013), 92 percent of working youth do not actively participate in trade unions, while 93 percent don’t strive to influence workplace decisions.
The young firebrands of the 1970s who denounced economic inequality are long gone, leaving only pockets of students and youth who are passionate about making a difference.
How did we end up here?
Inequality in Sri Lanka has increased since economic liberalisation. Faced with dismal prospects of employment; a spiralling cost of living; inequitable development and indebtedness; social welfare cuts; and marginalisation based on ethnicity, gender and sexuality, it begs the question – why are young workers not on the rampage, challenging the system?
Given our ageing population, the labour force must be driven by new generations of workers who, instead of turning their backs on the labour movement, need to bring new perspectives, energy and creativity to the struggle.
“It’s very hard unionising youth. Repression and conditions in the factories are at the heart of workers’ apathy, as well as a fear of participating,” a young activist laments. “They are scared of unionising. They can’t find the time. Whatever their age, all workers need to participate in the labour movement; after all, it is in their best interests,” he adds.
However, corporates founded on profit, productivity and patriarchy cannot afford a workforce with a conscience. An activist in the Free Trade Zone explains that this is the reason corporates are trying to suppress workers’ desire for solidarity, or make only piecemeal concessions to their demands. “The workers are under tremendous pressure,” he insists, adding that “there is serious repression.”
He explains: “If employers get to know, they will dismiss the workers, as an example to their colleagues, even threatening to shut down factories and put everyone out of work. So the young don’t want to take the risk. Naturally, they think about saving their jobs. Bread-and-butter issues seem to trump the collective interest.”
Furthermore, a rampant consumer culture keeps us carefully locked into our 9-to-5 jobs, making us accept debt, inequality and oppression as an inevitable part of life. Consumerism promotes narcissism, making the solidarity needed for democratic action extremely difficult.
The system has always assigned our roles to us, to ensure that profitability is not jeopardised by organised labour.
With a new regime in place, one hopes that we’ve seen an end to state terror against people’s movements. The hope is that we will not witness incidents similar to those in Rathupaswala or the Katunayake FTZ, where the police shot at protesting workers, resulting in the tragic death of young Roshen Chanaka.
“The Government should consider trade unions as social partners, and engage in tripartite consultation. If workers feel that their voices are being heard, they will use the space to organise [themselves],” a union activist states.
The unions also need to make changes. They must loosen up their rigid internal culture and structures, to admit more young people. And they must change the prevailing bureaucratic, paternalistic structures, which make the movement unappealing and inaccessible to youth.
According to a union leader, “the majority of the unions are party-affiliated. They are very traditional and have no idea about the needs of young people. Therefore, the trade unions need to change their hidebound ways of operating and organising, and be more inclusive.”
Change must take place in the education system as well. Youth need to learn about their rights and responsibilities as citizens, from an early age. But most classrooms, regardless of subject matter, socialise students to passively accept the dicta of authority. The attacks by the establishment on the student movement speak volumes for its fear of opinionated and active youth.
Youth participation in the labour movement is grossly inadequate to ensure that workers’ rights are not eroded. Many young workers take their breaks, vacations, pension plans and insurance for granted. These rights and benefits came as the result of struggles in the past. If we don’t fight to keep them, they could easily be rescinded.