“Yahapālana” Government To Attack Labor Rights
Sumanasiri Liyanage
Independent Trade Union Organization consisting 16 trade unions had a protest in front of the Colombo ILO office on October 26 against its support to the government to amend labor laws to make hiring and firing easier. I understand that in response to this protest, a seminar is planned by the Ministry of Labor to outline the planned labor market reforms. Former Supreme Court Judge, Ms Shiranee Tilakawardane is named in the agenda of the seminar as the key presenter and it shows she is the one who drafts new labor market reforms. It is a known fact that the previous government also tried to amend existing labor laws with regard to hiring and firing, wage determination and many other subjects claiming that new laws were required to face the new situation, globally as well as locally. It is also interesting to note that labor market reforms are one of the essential components of the neoliberal agenda that proposes all out marketization of the economy. To understand the real nature of the efforts to change labor relations, the reform agenda has to be situated in the global and local context. Finance Minister of the new ‘yaha palanaya’ government has emphasized recently that many sectors would be in the future opened for the private sector. Similarly, the present government seems to consider direct private investment as the main source of economic development in the country. Since, as we have witnessed, DFI and local private investment are slow to respond to government’s appeal to invest, it can be surmised that the government would ask for substantial loan from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to face dwindling foreign exchange reserves and to finance the fiscal deficit in 2016 budget. Private sector employers’ associations have repeatedly stressed that main obstacle for private sector investment is the existing labor laws that are, according to them, more favorable to employees. If I put it into simple language, the existing labor laws have made it difficult to fire workers when the employer needs to do so. As we all aware that Sri Lankan labor laws that were drafted and amended during the 1950s- 1970s were very much concerned over the security of the service of the employees. The famous verdict by three judges, Canekaratne, Schokman and Coomaraswamy, had reiterated this aspect of the labor regulations. (Ceylon Government Gazette –extraordinary– July 26, 1956)
