Exploited they fight back

While Sri Lanka’s undivided attention over the past six months has been focused on the politics of the nation and its economic future, a little-known but significantly important development for women has surfaced.

Women’s groups working in the free trade zones (FTZs) and tea plantations recently banded together to form the Women’s Solidarity Union (WSU) which has applied for registration to the labour authorities (see story on Page 1).

Leading the campaign are female labour rights activists in the FTZs and news of the formation of this union came during a discussion last week in Colombo on labour issues. The yet-to-be registered union also jointly held a public march and rally with the Ceylon Mercantile Union on May Day but not unusually, little media focus was given to the country’s first women’s trade union marching proudly, shouting slogans alongside their more famous male colleagues.

To followers of the country’s female rights movements, this would have been welcome news to the female doyens (if they are around) of the labour rights movement like Vivienne Goonawardene, Kusala Abhayawardene, Doreen Wickremasinghe and Oueda Keuneman to name a few.

Women’s labour movements, taking up cudgels on behalf of exploited female workers, have been growing in the three main sectors where there is a large concentration of females – plantations (traditionally), FTZs and migrant workers. While plantation and FTZ unions have been vibrant over workers’ rights, issues facing female migrant domestic workers (a much larger segment than the other two) haven’t got the same attention due to the absence of politically, influential support groups in this sector.

Even so, male-dominated trade unions particularly in the plantation sector have focused mostly on the rights of male workers with female-specific issues not getting enough attention. The same would apply to the FTZs where women’s groups like the Dabindu Collective and Women’s Centre, Ekala have actively led the fight for women’s labour rights in the zones over the past 2-3 decades.

Years of exploitation, sexual harassment and lack of equal rights has now led to the formation of the WSU. In this modern day and age with slavery being a thing of the past, discrimination and labour exploitation should be of a bygone era.

That is not the case and exploited women are now fighting back even putting their lives at risk as law enforcement authorities fail in their duty to the public in a world where thugs, criminals, underworld gangs and political ‘henchiyas’ rule. For example, according to Padmini Weerasooriya, Executive Director at the Women’s Centre, Ekala cum WSU President, women are forced to hit back with umbrellas or bags when men on cycles or otherwise forcibly ‘touch’ their bodies. “Earlier the women will weep and reflect a sense of helplessness but today they are fighting back,” she said.

Missing today are the labour rights fighters of yesteryear with strong leftist roots while the current set of female politicians are being more accommodated by the various political parties as a concession than an equal right or based on ability. Even political parties who say they support the call for 10 per cent of parliament being represented by women are not showing it in their national lists. For example in the national lists of 29 nominees each of the three main political groups – UNP-led coalition, UPFA and the JVP – just 3.4 per cent of the total of 87 names are women. The UPFA list doesn’t have a single woman while the JVP has two - Kanthi Pushpalatha and Nayomi Ratnayake, and the UNP one - Anoma Gamage.

While government authorities and employers will always deny any discrimination of female workers in various spheres, incidents of such cases hasn’t eased since the 1980s.

A new issue that has arisen in the FTZs is the influx of temporary workers numbering around 4050,000 fed by manpower agencies ostensibly catering to a shortage of workers.

While the authorities say there are 30,00 vacancies, companies are finding it more convenient to fill vacant slots with workers supplied by manpower or job agents who are paid less for the same work done by a permanent worker and don’t have any paid leave, medical leave, maternity leave, bonus’ or overtime. Accidents at work are not the responsibility of the company or the job agent, leaving these workers in dire straits in case of an accident.

On the flip side, some men and women prefer temporary jobs and are seen doing many jobs on different days. Some workers work during the traditional agriculture off season and return to their village during harvesting, etc.

Women at the zones suffer from malnourishment and also face serious problems of being unable to conceive due to exposure to chemical fumes and noise pollution, FTZ activists say, and sometimes takes as long as eight years to conceive. At some boarding houses, FTZ workers are allowed by the landlord to bathe only once a day to save on water costs.

While the FTZ model of development and jobs creation has been around for nearly 40 years, has this model worked and helped provide a decent wage and decent living conditions to village women who constitute the majority of the workers? On the other hand, if one is to argue from an employer’s standpoint, can factories afford to pay a higherthan-today wage given the competitiveness of the business?

The WSU claims that companies make a good profit and can afford better wages to all workers. “If we are in a power of authority we’ll negotiate directly with the brands like Nike or Adidas for a living wage,” says Ms. Weerasooriya.

Whether the emergence of Sri Lanka’s debutant women’s trade union will lead to a huge improvement in the working lives of women remains to be seen. Nevertheless the formation of the WSU sends a strong signal to political parties and governments that women will soon represent a more potent voter base and that their needs and demands must be taken more seriously.