Sri Lanka is no more a destination of cheap labor for investors

(September 19, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity - Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe) Sri Lanka appears no more an oasis of cheap labor for foreign investors in manual labor is prime. That is not because the majority of Sri Lankans have better living standards now. The reason is that life conditions are so difficult that a few rupees thrown by factory owners as salary cannot save them from misery.

Reports say that the garment and other similar factories country wide have around 30,000 regular and increasing number of unfilled vacancies.

Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment (BOI) says that 7000 positions are vacant in the BOI investment zones alone island wide.

Vacancies are unfilled of the skilled and unskilled workers in the garment, furniture, diamond, rubber, plastic and electronic trades, BOI says.

More than 1000 vacancies are available in Katunayaka, Seethawaka, Biyagama and Mawathagama export zones, according to BOI. Over 600 vacancies are unfilled in Wathupitiwala export zone. Around 300 vacancies are available in Koggala. Hundreds of unfilled positions are in other investment zones as well.

Trade unions say that the reason for less attraction of workers in investment zones is the lower salary.

A recent report of the Medical Research Institute of the Ministry of Health stated that 20%of Sri Lankans are in extreme poverty and they depend on less than 2 $ income per day. Basic salary of most of these factories is around or just above 2 $ per day. Sri Lanka is a country with high cost of living.

Especially, the price of food is extremely high due to government taxes on imports. The category of people mentioned above spend 60% of their daily income for food.

Anyone can understand why the workers from far away areas are not attracted in work in export zones as it happened earlier. One time, young girls of poor families of remote villages worked in these factories to earn their living and to save for their dowry. Nowadays, the salary of these factories is not sufficient even to pay for food and lodging. Why to come and waste time?

Many village women still opt to migrate to Arab countries since they are paid in foreign currency and they can have free food and lodging although salary is meager.

Of the 1.8 million Sri Lankan expatriate workers, the vast majority is the women from poor families. They are the major source of foreign income of Sri Lanka that is ruled by a bunch of fat male asses.

Sri Lanka expects Rs. five billion as remittance this year.


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Cheap labour from IDPs of Sri Lanka changing the labour terrain

By Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe

(August 29, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Working class of Sri Lanka is facing new challenges following the defeat of the Tamil liberation struggle and the capitalist re-unification of the state structure.

In the latest development, the garment factory owners struggling to survive amidst the loss of GSP Plus tax concessions from European Union are in a mass recruitment drive of Tamil girls among IDPs for cheap labour in factories.

Anton Marcus, President of the Progressive Free Trade Zone and Apparel Union told the Sunday Times, “After many years of war, the people in these areas are ignorant of workers rights, wages and so on and are easy prey for the apparel operators. Most of the big names currently touring the north and east are known to be serious violators of labour laws. There is a huge dearth of factory hands at the moment because many are leaving owing to poor wages and working and living conditions. Therefore the apparel bosses have switched to the north and east where there is widespread unemployment. These people are willing to work for any wage and they care less about the working or living conditions. At the end of the day, these workers will be exploited.”

The trend recalls the history of colonial planters importing low-income group people from South India as plantation workers in the 19th century. Poverty stricken Sinhala villagers that lost their traditional livelihood due to land grab of the colonial companies grew a deep rooted jealousy and hatred with the Indian workers and it still prevails even more than 60 years after gaining independence. To appease them, Sinhala rulers took back the citizenship right of these Tamil workers and deported thousands of them against their wish. Indian origin Tamils are still struggling far behind the other communities to achieve due equality.

The cheap labour available in recently re-unified areas of Sri Lanka may have a greater impact on Sri Lanka's labour market in recent future with the revocation of restrictions of mobility that were imposed on security concerns. Even now, the cheap labour from the workers of minority communities have changed the labour terrain in rice cultivating districts like Polonnaruwa.

This can cause a new challenge to the workers' movements since there is a possibility of emergence of a new wave of racism among workers that clash in labour market for better demand for them. Similar riots took place in some states of India in recent times.

Another kind of manipulated labour migration is also visible in re-unified areas. The state and private companies that carry out development projects in Northern Province take labourers from south to north due to security and other issues instead of recruiting labourers from IDPs.

Media reports say even India is to bring a 20,000 workforce to Sri Lanka to employ in the 50,000 numbers mega housing project for IDPs of Northern Province.

Less attention is paid both by Sri Lanka and India regarding the feeble voice of the IDPs demanding employment in these development projects.

Governments are yet to identify that they are providing breeding grounds for fragmented Tamil nationalist forces that are manipulating the situation to revive Tamil racism among IDPs.



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