A magnificent and historic strike of up to 400,000 tea plantation workers shook Sri Lanka in December. While 2006 was a record year for profits for the Sri Lankan tea production, with tea exports reaching $809 million - up 14% on 2005 - workers had to settle for miserably low rates of pay of just over $1 a day.
These rising profits are off the back of poverty wages and dismal working conditions in which workers are forced to pick tea no matter the weather, including heavily pregnant women. There is no compensation whatsoever for days off due to illness or childbirth and workers are forced to live in slave-like conditions, without basic toilet or cooking facilities.
The strike action focussed on the demand for a wage increase to take account of the soaring cost of living. The movement began with go-slows and sing-alongs that slowed down and disrupted production. This helped to imbue the workers with a growing sense of their own power and go-slow initiatives developed into angry mass demonstrations in many cases.
Tea plantation workers are mostly female, have little or no education, and are predominantly Tamil-speaking of Indian origin. Tamils are the most economically and socially oppressed section of Sri Lankan workers. Trade union leaders, also of Tamil background, are known for wielding a lot of influence over the workers but also for consistently betraying them.
The only manner in which union leaders contributed to the struggle was to hold it back. Just as workers were growing in self-confidence and after 15 days of strike action, these so-called leaders struck a sell-out deal with the weakened employers, with workers receiving a paltry wage increase, way short of their initial demands. The union leaders had no problem signing this shameful agreement in the presence of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse, whose government has launched a violent assault on the Tamil-speaking minority of the north and east.
Many workers felt compelled to continue the fight for their original demands. Our sister party, the United Socialist Party has been actively campaigning for other unions to support the struggle in a non-sectarian show of support for workers’ demands for decent wages and conditions for all.
For more on the workers movement in Sri Lanka and across the world, check out
www.socialistworld.net.
