With the Presidential Election (PE) right around the corner, a wave of strikes has been started by various trade unions across the country. It is worth looking at the reasons why these trade unions belonging to various institutions have commenced strikes at this very critical juncture of the country with regard to the country’s politics and its future.
Many are of the view that these strikes are to be launched to win their demands before calling nominations for the PE as there is no space for trade union action once the nominations for the PE are called. However, in the past similar attempts had been launched by trade unions when elections were around the corner and most of those strikes were aimed at putting pressure and to discredit ruling Governments to gain petty political mileage.
On several occasions, teachers have resorted to trade union action and it is clearly evident that those strikes were led by trade unions affiliated to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). It was shown by the media how those JVPs former Provincial Council members were leading those strikes.
Real purpose
However, the real purpose of these strikes will become clear through questions raised by some people on social media platforms. Some claim as to why they want to resort to trade union actions for salary hikes now without tolerating the next few months if the JVP will win the forthcoming PE. This is a fair and logical question as if they are very confident that the JVP will come into power at the 2024 PE, there is no urgent need for the JVP’s trade union leaders to hold strikes beforehand. Doesn’t that mean that the JVP will not come into power? Therefore, isn’t the purpose of JVP’s strikes solely to discredit the Government by sabotaging the normalcy in the State administrative structures and disrupting people’s day-to-day lives?
Two-months have passed since the strike commenced by the University non-academic staff demanding an increase in their salaries. The Government, which has appointed a committee to look into salary anomalies in the public sector, has announced that all salary anomalies will be resolved through the 2025 Budget. But, it seems that the motive of some of the trade union leaders, who are leading the University non-academic staff strike, is to disrupt the country’s University education rather than winning their demands.
This University non-academic staff strike has deprived the education of thousands of students for more than two months of their lives. If the University non-academic staff is able to close Universities for this long, what is the need for Vice Chancellors, Deans and Registrars in Universities?
The Government has increased the salaries of the public sector by Rs. 10,000 this year. In 2015, the then Government, in which President Ranil Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister, the salaries of public sector employees was increased by Rs. 10,000. This year’s salary increment is the biggest ever salary increment given for public sector employees even though the country was declared bankrupt and having a serious economic crisis where finding finances for a significant salary hike was difficult. However, it seems that now some trade unions are making various demands, asking for higher wages and holding strikes. How can a Government increase salaries further to any sector after increasing the salary by Rs.10,000 ?
Looking at trade union actions and also those planned to be held, it is clear that these are led by the JVP’s trade unions and some other political parties to discredit the Government in the run-up to the PE. Unfortunately, these trade union actions have led to undermine Sri Lanka’s public service and also some professional ethics.
Noble profession
The teaching profession is a noble profession in the country. Although the JVP claims that it is the guardian of free education, does free education really prevail in schools in the country today? In a family with two or three children, the most pressing issue that they face today is not finding money for food or other basic necessities, but finding money to send their children for tuition classes. Most schools do not have students in their Advanced -level classes as well as some G.C.E.O/L classes during school hours. The main reason is that they all are attending extra tuition classes during school hours. These days even Grade five students of primary classes have to go for tuition classes to get through the Grade Five Scholarship Examination.
President Wickemesinghe said this week that the law would be amended if necessary to allow schools to continue from 7.30 am to 1.30 pm without any interruption. When there are so many tuition classes in the country and when student’s childhood is being disrupted due to tuition classes, teachers should focus on how to maintain the respect for their noble profession similar to the respect in the past. Parents send their children to schools spending the entire amount of their income on tuition besides the tax they pay. How can the salaries of the teachers be further increased while all measures have been taken to resolve salary anomalies of teachers and principals?
According to the media, Government Ayurvedic doctors and civil engineers are also planning to resort to trade union actions demanding to resolve their grievances while Grama Seva Niladharis are still protesting urging the Government to resolve their problems. A group of people who claim to be Government Executives are still engaging in a trade union action demanding to resolve certain grievances. For a long time now, there have been proposals to bring about changes in the structure of Government revenue collection agencies.
A major problem in the country is non-payment of taxes by people who should pay taxes. Although there are tax collection institutions such as the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), Excise Department (ED) and Sri Lanka Customs (SLC) to collect Government revenue, the percentage of revenue received by the Government continued to decrease, while the revenue received or the number of taxpayers did not increase.
These institutions, which are entrusted with the primary responsibility of collecting revenue for the Government, are often considered as institutions that have not fulfilled their responsibilities properly. The officers of these institutions get many benefits like incentives, overtime payments and cash prizes.
Proper revenue
However, most people are of the view that these institutions have neglected their responsibility of getting the proper revenue to the Government. Therefore, there is a long standing proposal to merge the three institutions and establish a new administrative structure, but it has not yet been established. After realising the present situation, the unions of IRD and ED refrained from resorting to trade union action against establishing a new revenue authority to boost tax collection, but SLC union was getting prepared to resort to a trade union action against this important move. However, the SLC trade union has agreed to call off their strike at the last moment.
If you look closely at who is behind this wave of strikes, you will find that most of these strikes are being launched by trade union leaders of the JVP or the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). Joint trade union action committees have been formed in many institutions. Even though the trade unions of many institutions, which are aligned to JVP, have a very low number of members, they force trade unions to continue strikes without coming into settlements through these joint trade union action committees.
The reactions of the public to some of the political parties that believe they will come into power indicate that they do not have such a powerful wave within the people. Due to that, it seems that the aim of these political parties is to somehow influence people to come on to streets to create a wave of opinion for them. Therefore, they are ready to hold the lives and future of the country’s people, workers, university students, school students and parents to ransom to realise their dreamy goals.
