Strong response to SEP/IYSSE meeting on university workers’ strike in Sri Lanka

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka held a successful online meeting last Friday to discuss the way forward for striking non-academic university employees. Around sixty people attended the event, including fifteen non-academic university employees and several students.

Nearly 13,000 non-academic employees of 17 government universities in Sri Lanka have been on an indefinite strike since May 2, demanding a 25 percent increase in their monthly allowances and a 15 percent wage hike to eliminate “salary anomalies.”

Chairman of Friday’s meeting was Dehin Wasantha, an employee of the University of Moratuwa and a leading member of the SEP. He is well known among university staff and students for his consistent struggle for an international socialist perspective. Wasantha told the meeting that the strike, which has been going on for 44 days, had reached a critical point.

“University workers have taken up the fight because they are demanding a wage increase to compensate for the unbearably rising cost of living. Union leaders have admitted that they were called to strike due to ‘pressure’ from members, but have limited the wage demand to one originally made eight years ago.

“Yet President Wickremesinghe has insisted that the government cannot grant wage increases this year because of money constraints. It is clear that non-academic employees or other civil servants cannot achieve their demands by putting pressure on the government. The working class must wage a united struggle to achieve its social demands, which include wage increases.”

Wasantha pointed to the undemocratic methods of the union bureaucrats, saying that they did not allow their members to put forward the demands that were necessary to adequately compensate for the fall in wages. Nor did the union officials allow a democratic discussion on how to conduct the struggle to achieve these necessary demands.

“They – the union leaders – decide and the members have to comply! Although there was a mass protest in Colombo on May 7 involving about 4,000 workers, including those from the North and East, the unions have now restricted these actions,” he said.

Wasantha called on his striking non-academic colleagues to immediately form action committees and work with other sections of the working class in a common struggle against the government’s austerity measures.

WA Sunil, a member of the SEP Political Committee, who delivered the main report at the meeting, said that workers across Sri Lanka must pay close attention to the non-academic workers’ strike.

The government, he said, has completely rejected the demands of all sections of the working class for wage hikes. Instead, in line with the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it is intensifying attacks on the rights of all workers. These include privatisation of state-owned enterprises, increasing the prices of essential goods by devaluing the rupee, raising taxes and imposing drastic cuts in social spending.

Wickremesinghe says there is no money for salary increases and insists that workers are bearing the brunt of the country’s economic disaster. “But why should workers bear the burden of the capitalist crisis?” asks Sunil.

The spokesman told the meeting that non-academic union leaders had publicly stated that they “understand” and “accept” that the government is facing a financial crisis.