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This is a speech delivered by Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, MP on "Globalisation and Trade Unions in Sri Lanka" at the seminar of Asian Trade Union Leaders held in Beijing on "Economic Globalisation and Asian Trade Union Movement".

A trade union demonstration

This is a topic that could be approached from both ends. We could either start from globalisation and come to trade unions, which means the role of the working class; or, start from trade union activities and come to globalisation.

Either way, one must have a clear definition of globalisation, a term used quite loosely within the political jargon, in Sri Lanka. For most articulate 'Left' opinion makers in Sri Lanka, 'globalisation' is but another word for 'Western Imperialism', the exploiters of the world. Within that, they would prefer to discard everything from technology to information, from knowledge to capital, as mechanisms that drain off resources from our country.

Intellectual

In that context, the left politics in Sri Lanka has not changed from what it was in the decades of the 50's and the 60's. More clearly said, the 'left' has not intellectually matured to understand the changing new world.

I would therefore start this discourse from Trade Unions, as trade unions in Sri Lanka, are politically well connected, if not affiliated. To briefly introduce the origin and growth of trade unions in Sri Lanka, let us go back to the early 20th century. The first trade union was formed by A. E. Gunasinghe, to agitate against working conditions of manual labourers that were very inhuman and menial.

While A. E. Gunasinghe moved ideologically towards Sinhala chauvinism, the first Marxist party in the then Ceylon, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) formed in 1931, gradually took control of the labour force and turned it into a movement that galvanised the fight against imperialism.

In the 40's, the LSSP basically controlled the trade union movement in the city and in the plantation sector, where indentured Indian labour was used. The strength of the LSSP was gauged by the strength it had among the working class. And that became the criteria in assessing the strength of the 'left' parties and groups. In other words, their strength was their ability to bring to a standstill, any service sector, through trade union action.

This has its ideological link too, with 'left' politics. In Sri Lanka, it was the 'left' parties that infused and cultivated the social ideology of a state-owned welfare system. Their interpretation of 'socialism', quite mechanical and simple, required all social service systems and production sources to be owned or controlled by the state.

The private sector was a stooge of imperialism and would only decide on profits, and not on the social needs and demands. Therefore, the trade unions being politically organised workers collectively under 'left' political guidance and leadership, formulated their existence in terms of a welfare state.

Thus in Sri Lanka, we have a trade union movement that is politically moulded to fight against any attempt by the state to disown its right to control social services and its access to production sources. Berserk

This political thinking goes berserk towards the latter part of the 1960's, with the two main 'left' parties, the LSSP and the Sri Lanka Communist Party (CP) joining forces with the middle-of-the-road, pro-Sinhala, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) of the Bandaranaikes.

The workers who were with the 'left', and always in the opposition fighting against governments, were given the taste of being with a government for the first time from 1970, and that relocated the trade unions to be on the side of the government and fight to safeguard the government, a role they had never played ever before.

In this new context, where all negotiations for workers' rights were based not on the strength of the membership, but on the closeness to the main political party of the government, the trade union base of the 'left' got eroded. Thereafter, the two main political parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the SLFP had the working class gravitating between them, each time they formed a government. This made the trade unions mere tools in the making of governments and left them with no ideological developments within them.

It would be interesting now to surf the impact of globalisation in Sri Lanka, and how trade unions have reacted or impacted on its development. For once, it should be noted that globalisation as commonly portrayed, is not turning the whole world into a single, tightly-knit world order, in terms of capital accumulation and wealth distribution.

Globalisation has only turned the whole world into a single, IT (information technology) based society or the process of effecting that, that is what is termed 'globalisation'. Meanwhile the world economy is being continuously 'regionalised' geographically as European Community, ASEAN, Organisation of African Nations, Association of Latin American Nations, SAARC etc.

The American dollar is being challenged in the world market especially by the new 'Euro' which in trade, is stronger in Sri Lanka.

Restrictions

All this allowed Sri Lanka to enjoy the growth of IT, which has no geographical restrictions, as witnessed by coal during the industrial revolution, being restricted to the European West. With the opening of the economy in 1977, allowing free trade, import of technology, equipment and also travel, all of which had been severely restricted, Sri Lanka got tied to the Western market, a market that was almost absent till then.

This linking up, if one calls it entering the process of globalisation compelled the government to seek foreign investments to start new ventures. That was how free trade zones and investment promotion mechanisms came into being.

While this discourse is focused very much on the space that the open economy provided in gathering together a new generation of workers, it should also be noted, though briefly, that there were negative impacts on the society and economic growth was never even or fair.

Nevertheless, the society, with a new, youthful working force outside the traditional state service sector and production, was provided with an opportunity to access new technology, information, knowledge and above all, new business organisational and management practices.

Outsourcing of production, especially in the garment and textile industry, was one such organisational and management practice that emerged, keeping employees outside and away from trade unions. While legislation kept trade unions outside export promotion zones, smaller, private outsourcing centres that sprang up all over the city and its suburbs, had a large percentage of contract employees who were also non-unionised.

Another is the growth of small and medium enterprises often controlled by a single family that has a few employees, as in the catering and non traditional food industry, that does not provide any scope for unionising.

Remote

One could leave out micro business that have sprung out even in remote rural areas, for they hardly employ any labour outside the family. Yet another sector that keeps enlarging is the private security service sector that does not allow trade unions.

Therefore, globalisation on the one hand gave space for a new work-force that has to work within new organisational structures and management practices, while on the other hand keeping them outside trade unions. That wasn't the only impact of globalisation.

The attitude change that occurred over the past two decades also has an impact on the trade unions and their working.

Today, there are no workers who are just labourers of the 50's.

Today all are employees, with a feel for social mobility. That perhaps is a very big attitudinal change, for in the past no worker ever thought he or she could move up the social ladder and achieve a more comfortable and luxury life. Today, all workers start off with middle class attitudes and behave so. This is also a reason why the more urban centred employees keep away from trade unions.

While all this is happening, there is an attempt to maintain a status-quo in the state centred social life, to continue with the old tradition of maintaining a strong welfare state.

But with the economy functioning within the market norms and needs, the state is compelled to loosen its role as service provider, and most of the new work-force staying out of unions and living with private sector production, the ideologically traditional trade unions have failed to re-orient themselves to force the government(s) to introduce new organisational structures, management practices and technology to state sector service providers and production organisations, in order to make them economically more viable and socially less burdensome.

They have failed to grapple with the new and changing socio-economic patterns and find alternate answers to continue with a viable state-sector life. Therefore they have no possible answers as to how Sri Lanka should and could position itself within the process of globalisation, and no ideological interpretation as to how the trade unions should face globalisation effectively to reap the benefits of new knowledge, technology, management skills and practices.

And this in Sri Lanka is a challenge the trade union leaderships would have to face, if they are to project themselves as a social factor, worth their existence in generating a new ideology and perspective for social progress.

A role they kept missing in the past and seems to be missing once again.

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