Bride in the kitchen

Editorial-April 30, 2014

Today, the International Workers’ Day is celebrated on a grand scale the world over. Elaborate arrangements have been made in this country as well for today’s event. We hope the weather gods will have mercy upon hapless workers and refrain from training heavenly water cannon on May Day processions.

However, the problem with May Day rallies here is that they are like Hamlet without Prince of Denmark or Julius Caesar staged with Brutus as the protagonist. Or, they are like a wedding with the bride cooking in the kitchen while the party is on. The worker is denied the pride of place.

May Day events in Sri Lanka have been mere gimmicks to promote politicians on the pretext of celebrating a day sacred to workers. Pro-worker slogans are shouted with gusto by marchers most of whom are politicians’ henchmen bussed from different parts of the country to take part in the May Day processions in return for meals, rotgut and one thousand rupees each. Workers, having enjoyed these circuses sans bread, go back home, cherishing the delusion that they have had their voice heard.

There was bad news for workers numbering well over six million in the private sector in the run-up to this year’s May Day. It was reported that the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), their lifeline in retirement, had suffered massive losses owing to risky investment in shaky ventures which the government wants propped up for obvious reasons. Greedy politicians had been eyeing the EPF for decades, unable to meddle with it as they feared that trade unions would offer stiff resistance and might even resort to strikes to save workers’ money. But, today, trade unionists, having opted to sleep with the powers that be, politicians are in a position to invest EPF money according to their whims and fancies. This is an issue that workers must take up themselves without depending on their trade union leaders to address it.

It is also reported that the government has not yet abandoned its plan to convert the EPF and the ETF (Employees’ Trust Fund) into a pension scheme. Workers put up fierce resistance when it first tried to railroad them into submission and carry out its decision in spite of their protests. Their demonstrations were violently crushed and innocent blood was shed but its project was thankfully shelved.

Crafty politicians and their bureaucratic lackeys who won’t scruple even to rob mendicants to raise funds in a bid to impress their political masters thirsting for dosh are not to be trusted with workers’ savings––or anyone else’s money for that matter. Every one of them comes penniless, but leaves with a fortune stashed away in his or her offshore accounts.

It is imperative that workers remain vigilant and bring pressure to bear on their trade union leaders to stop playing softball with politicians and ensure that their savings are safe. Else, six million workers will be reduced to paupers sooner or later with neither EPF benefits nor pensions in retirement.

The time has come for the bride to come out of the kitchen, so to speak. May Day belongs to workers and no one else. They must stop offering their services as palanquin bearers to politicians at least on this day dedicated to the memory of intrepid protesters who braved bullets, fighting as they did for labour rights, and perished in the process in Chicago in 1886 for the sake of the working class.

One’s gorge rises when political windbags bellow empty rhetoric and shed crocodile tears for workers on May Day.