‘Protect labour rights in North, East’

Representatives of labour unions in the tripartite National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) say they are concerned that labour rights could be prone to violations as Sri Lanka pushes to attract investors and industrialists to the North and East. They hope to raise this issue with the NLAC before long.

There are constant violations of labour rights even in the export processing zones located in the Western Province, where unions are established and the Department of Labour has easier access for monitoring purposes. Recently, the International Labour Organisation had to hear a case of labour inspectors not having easy access to factories located in these export processing zones.

"It is important to provide jobs for people in the North and East but we must ensure that their labour rights are not violated by industrialists who would no doubt want to capitalise on the availability of cheap labour in these war-affected areas," Free Trade Zone and General Employees’ Union Secretary General Anton Marcus said.

"We soon hope to bring this up before the National Labour Advisory Council, but we have already begun reaching out to workers in these areas. In April this year, we visited labour unions in Jaffna and educated them on their statutory labour rights," Marcus said speaking to The Island Financial Review.

"There is a factory in the Katunayake Export Processing Zone that deducted pay from workers who could not attend work because of the recent flash floods. This same factory has also refused to acknowledge the right of workers to form a union. We hear this company is setting up two outsourcing factories in Killinochchi, so are they going in just because workers can be easily exploited because they are in desperate need for jobs after a long war?"

Sri Lanka has ratified eight core-conventions of the International Labour Organisation, of which Sri Lanka was one of its earliest members. These conventions are: 1. Freedom of association and the right to organise convention (1948), 2. Right to organise and collective bargaining convention (1949), 3. Forced labour convention (1930), 4. Abolition of forced labour convention (1957), 5. Minimum age convention (1973), 6. Worst forms of child labour convention (1999), 7. Equal remuneration convention (1951) and 8. Discrimination in employment and occupation convention (1958).

Apart from these core conventions and standards, Sri Lanka also has many pro-labour laws, so many that some analysts say they are archaic and not investor friendly. But unions argue that implementation and monitoring remains poor.

Marcus said the Board of Investment has opened up an office in the North while the Department of Labour too has offices in the North and East.

"Their capacity to enforce labour rights must be strengthened and people in the North and East have to be educated on their basic rights so that they would be less prone to exploitation," he said.