Two strikes by powerful unions in vital sectors of the Ceylonese economy, both "illegal under the Emergency Laws introduced in March 1971, are the clearest indication yet of a broadening out of the political opposition to the harsh anti-working class policies of the Bandaranaike regime. BANK EMPLOYEES The Bank Employees' strike, which began on 1 September, commenced as a result of a blocking by the Government of long overdue wage and salary demands. The two main employers are both State-owned: the Bank of Ceylon and the People's Bank. The Ceylon Bank Employees Union, the union leading the strike, is strong in both.
Support for the strike has been growing steadily, and there is considerable evidence that the Government's strike-breaking tactics are not meeting with the success anticipated. These tactics are fairly classic, and rest partly on the near-total Press control by the Government, and partly on the extremely high level of unemployment which has also hit the trained and technically qualified sector of the workforce (1971 unemployment stood at 12 per cent).
The Government's first move was to give an ultimatum to the strikers to return to work. During this period strikers "wishing to return to work" were asked to report to the nearest police station (for protection, presumably!). One recalls with itony the fate of many young JVP members, sympathisers and friends who at the time of the uprising gave themselves up on the "assurances" of the Government that they would be "fairly treated". Thousands of them are still languishing in Mrs Bandaranaike's "rehabilitation" (i.e. prison) camps, awaiting "trial" under the new Criminal Justice Legislation.
INTIMIDATION The Government was hoping to avert by this tactic the necessity to lock out strikers and recruit new staff to replace them, a tactic subsequently adopted, however. During this period many strikers were visited at their homes and threatened by supporters of the SLFP and LSSP and their unions; false reports that the strike was virtually over were and still are being circulated, verbally and through the Press. The Government and its unions have used this confusion to make accusations of threats and intimidation against the strikers. But as a Strike Bulletin of the Bank Employees puts it: "There is some truth in the report that attempts have been made to intimidate strikers. These were not by strikers, who have absolutely no reason to do so. But the Union has received several reports... that well-known political supporters of the Minister of Finance have gone to the houses of strikers, especially girls, and made crude attempts to frighten them into returning to work. They were in all cases told in no uncertain terms what was thought of them". The Government still poses as the socialist saviour of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), thanks to the participation within the governing coalition (in a weak, minority position) of the Moscoworiented Communist Party and the social-democratic, reformist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which broke with the Fourth International in 1964. This sordid relationship is used by Bandaranaike's bourgeois Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to condemn all opponents as "imperialists" and "reactionaries". Government propaganda condemns the strikers as agents of the BBC, the Voice of America, the CIA, the Herbert Ebert Foundation, the rightwing United National Party, the Federal Party, Borah merchants, and landed proprietors in the out-stations who are allegedly giving the bank employees "handsome contributions in cash and kind".
However, all the Government's methods ANTI-INTERNMENT LEAGUE NATIONAL CONFERENCE Saturday/Sunday, 7/8 October at North London Polytechnic, Holloway Road, N.7.
Further details from: John Gray, Basement Flat, 139 Holland Road, London W.14. (01-603 3085)
ALSO SOCIAL: 8 p.m. Saturday, 8 October, at North London Poly. All welcome. Picket of the Sri Lanka embassy in Tokyo, organised by the Ceylon Solidarity Campaign in Japan have failed. Virtually no strikers heeded the ultimatum. Of the 17,000 on strike only 16 returned to work; nine of these were well-known LSSP stooges and three subsequently walked out again because of the unity of the majority and the now obvious fiction that the strike was petering out. 'LEFTS' IN CRISIS The LSSP (of which the Minister of Finance is a member) has played a strike-breaking role since the time of the UNP regime which preceded the coalition government. In the present strike it has issued a public call to its members in the Union to blackleg. The refusal of many rank and file members of the LSSP to obey this call, however, is a further sign of the deep internal crisis which has increasingly afflicted the party since the Government first launched the wave of repression at the end of 1970.
The Moscow-oriented Communist Party is in a similar state: Peter Keuneman was ousted at the recent Congress from the position of General Secretary because of his indefensible role in the coalition. When the Criminal Justice Commissions Act was presented last April, four C.P. members voted against it and only one with the Government. Keuneman was conveniently out of the country at the time.
DEADLOCK The most recent news concerning the bank strike is that the Ministry of Finance refuses to negotiate before a return to work, while the Union insists that its members will not return before negotiations and a satisfactory settlement have been reached. Deadlock then, with Minister of Finance N. M. Perera having escaped to the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' Conference in London. But here too he is likely to be hard pressed, with unpalatable forecasts and directives awaiting him from his major creditors, the IMF and the World Bank. The effects of these can only lead to further and more bitter clashes between the Government and the organised working class, particularly as the delayed repercussions of last year's currency devaluations begin to be felt. A second major strike is also unresolved -that of technical workers in the Ministry of Irrigation, Power and Highways led by the Joint Front of Technical Officers' Trade Unions, which has been going on resolutely since 1 August. This too is having a very 182 Pentonville Road, London N.l.
Name:
Address: severe effect on the working of the Government's economic and social policies, despite the Ministry's assurances to the contrary. One of the capitalists' favourite tactics, it seems, is to suddenly inaugurate, out of the blue, a new union: the pretext here, for setting up a new Technical Officers' Union, has been the celebration of the long political and trade union career of a certain well-known traitor to the working class. The real social and political reasons for such a generous act are, however, patently clear to the strikers.
SOLIDARITY The significance of these tactics is also clear to other unions, whose support for the strikes shows further the failure of the Government's attempts to isolate, intimidate and de moralise the strikers. The Central Bank Employees Union, for example, has now federated with the Ceylon BEU and decided to bring out all its members on strike with the rest. Support has also come from the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU), whose Secretary, Bala Tampoe, is a leading member of the LSSP (Revolutionary), Ceylonese section of the Fourth International. At its 12th Delegates' Conference, on 3 September, the CMU passed a long resolution "to continue its struggle against the repressive policies of the capitalist regime", attacking every single major action of the Government.
The resolution also declared that: "This Delegates' Conference of the Ceylon Mercantile Union expresses its solidarity with and salutes the courageous decision of the Ceylon Bank Employees Union to refuse to submit to the threats of the Government in its struggle for the proper settle. ment of its long outstanding demands". An almost identical paragraph followed referring to the strike of the technical officers.
EXPLOSIVE SITUATION The police have now been put on the alert, especially near picket points, railway stations and bus stands, and told to look out for "troublemakers". The situation is clearly explosive, and with the coming Hunger Strike on 18 October, sponsored by the Human and Democratic Rights Organisation and five leading trade union organisations, the repressive apparatus of the Government will undoubtedly be stretched near to breaking point in the coming few weeks.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP (British Section of the Fourth International)
I would like more information about the IMG.
With the building strike over, Paul Smith looks at the ZIONISM (From page 1)