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| Saturday, 1 May 2004 |
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Do all workers enjoy the same rights? by Lionel Wijesiri
Workers not only want fair pay, they also want to share in the responsibility and creativity of the very work process. They want to feel that they are working for themselves - an awareness that is smothered in a bureaucratic system where they only feel themselves to be "cogs" in a huge machine moved from above. "On Human Work" (Donder's translation) I often wonder whether May 1st in Sri Lanka is just another public, bank and mercantile holiday. The reason being that not very many people who will throng into May Day rallies today know why May Day became International Workers Day and why they should still celebrate it. Maybe, one more piece of modern world history has been hidden from us. One hundred and eighteen years after that first May Day demonstration in Chicago, where are our workers? Today, shouting political slogans they stroll though towns with their banners, (maybe about the only day of the year they can get them out of head office). After miles-long march under the scorching sun, they stand around listening to boring (and usually pretty meaningless) speeches by equally boring politicians and union bosses. No speaker will remind them that May Day was once a day when workers all over the world displayed their strength united and without any political flavour, proclaimed their ideals and celebrated their successes. Anyway, once upon a time it was like that. Not anymore. Globalisation The technological revolution that has taken place during the past 25 years has meant an unprecedented development in the field of transport, communication, and media. The drastic liberalization of capital movements and of trade which began in the 80s was further enhanced with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. With the end of the Cold War the traditional blocks disappeared and the road was open for a further globalisation of the market. A completely new economic and political system came into existence. New countries adhered to market economy and opened up their markets to international trade. The world has become one big market where competitiveness is the order of the day. In reality, trade policy has taken over the role that security policy had in the Cold War days. Regional economic blocs such as the European Union and ASEAN have become leading actors on the economic scene. Globalisation offered ordinary people new opportunities to defend their rights. More than ever before they can exchange information, learn from each other, and build common strategies across international borders. There are many, many examples of how this is happening. Joint campaigns by workers and community activists, locally and internationally, are bringing great pressure on companies and governments to respect our rights. However, on the whole, globalisation has certainly not meant less poverty or more equality in the world - neither within the countries, nor between North and South. On the contrary, we have experienced a worldwide economic crisis, enormous social problems, especially poverty, unemployment, underemployment and social exclusion. We have seen a further polarisation between rich and poor with the expansion of prosperity for some accompanied by an expansion of unspeakable poverty for others. Poverty, unemployment and social disintegration that too often result in isolation, marginalization and violence. This neo-liberal policies have also often been accompanied by the adoption of anti-trade union legislation, undermining of trade union rights and repression of trade union leaders and activists on the spurious grounds that they represent obstacles to economic development. Today 40 per cent of the world's population exists in abject poverty on less than one dollar a day. More than 700 million people worldwide are not productively employed. Many are underemployed and millions of young people have little hope of ever finding productive work. At the same time we experience an increase in the totally unacceptable use of child labour which is one of the most terrible violations of the rights of the child to a decent childhood and to education The neo-liberal policies followed also by the international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have had drastic social consequences in many developing and transitional countries. They continue to be forced to follow the policies imposed upon them in order to get further loans to encounter the debt crisis that most of these countries experience. Thus, governments in these countries have lost their autonomy and have no way of deciding the development within their own boundaries. In some democracies like Sri Lanka that have been through years of bloody civil war the policies of the IMF and the World Bank has become a real threat to the democratisation processes, when the broad population becomes more and more frustrated at the lack of development and social improvements. Worker rights But the neo-liberal wave is spent. We have seen that the hundred percent neo-liberalistic policies just do not work. The population in an increasing number of countries is rejecting these policies and demanding a much more human and socially just development. Globalisation has, thus, to a large extent been shaped by, and in the interest of, international investors. These investors have found a new voice in the elites of the Third World. For example, even in countries like Sri Lanka with long trade union traditions we experience a deterioration of labour standards and measures being adopted to weaken or undermine the trade unions for the sake of the global competitiveness. All workers everywhere do have rights, including domestic workers and migrant workers, as well as workers in factories, offices and plantations. This is laid down at international level and in our own national laws. Workers have won those rights by fighting for them. Governments and employers have never just given them those rights on the platter. Workers have always had to struggle for these rights. It is through the workers' organisations that they can make their case for better working conditions. They can campaign and bring pressure on governments to pass labour protection laws. It is another basic right that trade unions can negotiate with employers. Through negotiation they can reach Collective Bargaining Agreements to set out agreed employment conditions. Since late 1970s, trade unions in Sri Lanka have been on the defensive looking for new visions to defend their rights in the new globalisation process. They must also admit that disgracefully there is a general tendency towards trade unions being weak, split, divided politically and often fighting each other rather than standing together in their struggle for a common goal. A growing lack of understanding of the role of trade unions have further weakened the trade union movement. Unity Our labour laws usually confirm workers' rights, for example, to: * Work in safe and healthy conditions * Be paid at least a minimum wage * Get paid more for overtime * Not to be forced to do overtime * Enjoy paid holidays each year * Get paid sick leave * Work at night under controlled conditions * Have paid maternity leave * Organise trade unions and negotiate with employers Unfortunately, many workers do not know what labour laws exist in our country. It is therefore very important to campaign and educate them about labour laws. This might mean workers getting together in small study circles to find out and discuss what labour laws exist at national and international level, and how to fight for them. It might mean producing posters and distributing materials (such as a 'Pocket Guide to Workers' Rights' ). It might also mean using the press and media as far as possible. And now time has come to act. Our trade unions must use the positive new tendency of making their voices heard for a new social development, for democracy and human rights and for the improvement of workers' rights everywhere in the country. But, first and foremost, workers must organise and unite - nationally- without any political affiliations, in order to become one huge national labour movement that can be in a position to alter the globalisation process towards a national welfare system that respects democracy and basic human and trade union rights. |
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