Language crisis hurts Northern workers

The Labour Department is currently in the process of recruiting Tamil speaking officers to ensure assistance is provided to workers in the North and East in an area where the language barrier has arisen since a number of factories have sprung up.

Labour Commissioner General R.P.A. Wimalaweera told the Business Times on Thursday that the department was in the process of recruiting 24 labour officers for the North and East. He was responding to the question where the language barrier has brought about issues between workers and the supervisors.

He noted that within another two weeks they would be given the appointments and following a month’s training by the end of October the new officers would be sent to serve in these areas.

Mr. Wimalaweera pointed out that it was due to a dearth of labour officers in these areas that they have had to employ new persons. Currently there are about over 50 labour officers serving in these areas.

FTZ Trade Union leader Anton Marcus said in an interview with the Business Times on Tuesday that a number of Sinhala- speaking Supervisors and Managers appointed to the newly established factories in the North has created a problem since other workers speak Tamil.

“When I met some of the workers I was told that they are unable to make any complaint since they had the language barrier – all factories in the north have this problem – apart from Mannar others are not in a FTZ,” Mr. Marcus said.

In the meantime, the factories in Vavuniya were said to be employing workers below the minimum wage at around Rs.12,000 per month whereas the basic wage is Rs.13,500.

Moreover, some factories were said to be employing women for the night shift without obtaining prior permission from the Labour Commissioner in this regard.

There are currently about 7500 workers employed in the nine new factories established in the North, Mr. Marcus said.

He pointed out that trade unionbased victimisation is also ongoing in certain factories with employees asked to step down from their membership in the unions else risk removal from the workforce.

In addition, a Women’s Day commemoration event held earlier this year saw managers of certain factories resorting to anti – trade union cam- paigns by openly informing workers that participation in these events would risk losing their jobs at the factory.

The Labour Commissioner General noted that they had not received any complaints so far from workers regarding work in the North based factories but said he had to ascertain more information in this regard from the district level offices.

He also noted that if any female was employed after 7.00 pm then prior approval would have to be obtained.

Commenting on the employees going against trade union activity on the factory floor, Mr. Wimalaweera noted “we are strict on that. People who want to join with the trade union should be allowed.”

He noted that should they receive any complaints in this regard they would take necessary and strict legal action.