Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights

Sri Lanka 2011

by International Trade Union Confederation, accessed April 2, 2012

ILO Core Conventions Ratified:  29 87 98 100 105 111 138 182

Reported Violations - 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Background

Strengthened by the military victory in 2009 over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), President Rajapaksa and his party won the presidential and parliamentary elections in January and April. The main opposition candidate, the former army chief Sarath Fonseka, was arrested two weeks following the presidential election, then condemned to 30 months in jail on corruption charges.

Sri Lanka has been placed under review for abuse of workers rights under the U.S. Generalised System of Preferences. In August 2010, the European Union reacted to human rights violations by partially withdrawing trade benefits previously granted under its generalised system of preferences.

In September, the parliament passed an amendment to the Constitution removing limits to government control over bodies such as the police, the judiciary and the National Human Rights Commission.

Trade union rights in law

Despite initial guarantees, trade union rights are limited by excessive restrictions. The right to form and join unions is recognised, however a number of workers are excluded or enjoy limited freedom of association, including agricultural workers. Furthermore, public service unions are not allowed to form federations or engage in collective bargaining. While the right to bargain collectively is guaranteed for other trade unions, they must represent over 40% of the workers at a given workplace in order to be recognised. The right to strike is seriously circumscribed. The long list of services defined as “essential” was removed in 2006 and replaced by a broad unrestricted definition. The regulations allow the President to ban any organisation s/he considers to be impeding, obstructing or delaying the production and delivery of any service “which is of public utility or is essential for national security or for the preservation of public order or the life of the community and includes any department of the government or branch thereof”.

Additional information regarding the legislation

In practice

The recognition of unions for collective bargaining purposes is dogged by excessive delays. Employers try to delay the holding of union elections for as long as possible and use this time to identify, victimise and, very often, fire the union activists concerned. As a result, workers generally refrain from voting, for fear of being identified, and the union fails to secure the number of votes required for it to be recognised. Employers go as far as to change their staffing figures to ensure the 40% representation target (deemed excessive by the ILO) is even harder to reach.

Where an employer refuses to recognise a union for collective bargaining purposes, the union can complain to the Commissioner General of Labour, who organises a referendum at the workplace. There is generally a very long wait, however, before such a referendum is actually held.

Employees’ Councils are promoted by the Board of Investment (BIO) as a substitute for trade unions in the export processing zones (EPZs). Employees’ councils are, however, structures funded by and functioning under the aegis of the employer and can influence workers’ choices much more easily than a union (where the workers elect their leaders and can act independently as the organisation is financed by the dues paid by its members). In some cases, management refuses to recognise an emerging trade union and will “negotiate” directly with the Employees’ Council as if it were the workers’ legitimate representative body. In other cases, it will offer employee council members certain advantages if they do not join a union and threaten them if they do.

EPZ employers have so far recognised 134 Employees’ Committees and only 10 trade unions.

Unions denied access to Magistrates’ Courts: There are many cases of anti-union discrimination. As with other unfair labour practices, such cases are heard by the Magistrates’ Court, but only the Commissioner General of Labour can file a complaint with it. Trade unions can try to obtain a summons from a higher court, but this is a long and costly procedure. In the absence of a maximum deadline for bringing cases before the Magistrates’ Court as of the moment a union reports a violation, the legislation on unfair labour practices serves little real purpose. The Commissioner General of Labour has only filed two cases since 1999.

Violations

Irregularities in the payment of wages in 2009 and 2010 led workers at the Everest Industries bottle cooler factory in the Katunayake EPZ to contact the industrial relationsdepartment of the Board of Investment (BOI). The BOI advised them to form an Employees’ Committee. At the end of the working day on 23 March, after 10 pm, when the president of the Employees’ Committee was being taken home by the company transport, the vehicle took a different route and left him in an isolated spot. A few minutes later he was attacked by a group of men. He had to be hospitalised for several days.

The workers demonstrated in front of the police station to demand that the aggressors be brought to justice. Everest Industries responded with repression: 90 employees were suspended; 70 of them were later reinstated, some after having been forced to sign a humiliating letter recognising their wrongdoings. Of the 20 other workers suspended, 19 were dismissed. The workers had contacted the Progress Union with a view to forming a genuine trade union at the company, but the project was brought to a halt by the dispute with the management.