Jagath Gurusinghe News Today

The trade union leaderships are desperately attempting to block a unified national movement of the working class to fight the Wickremesinghe government and its IMF austerity measures.

The Telecom Trade Union Front has fully accepted management’s abolition of the hard-won end of year bonus while claiming that management’s increased loan offer to workers is a “victory.”

The one-day national strike by Telecom workers powerfully demonstrated their determination to fight the Wickremesinghe government’s austerity measures.

Determined to prevent any confrontation with the government, the unions limited the event to a lunchbreak protest, making it impossible for workers from outside Colombo participating.

Union calls for increased involvement in the government’s restructuring and privatisation policies are not new and saw the elimination of over 2,000 Telecom jobs between 2000 and 2006.

Students should turn to the working class and wage a fight for its political independence from all parties and agencies of the bourgeoisie, including the trade unions and pseudo-left organisations such as the FSP.

Tamils and Muslims in the north and east participated in the mass hartal, while union bureaucrats in Colombo prevented unified nationwide actions.

The privatisation of state-owned enterprises and the destruction of tens of thousands of public sector jobs, are part of the IMF-dictated austerity measures being imposed by the Wickremesinghe government.

Union thugs tried unsuccessfully to prevent members of the SEP from distributing its statement, explaining the treacherous role of the unions and the need for new organisations controlled by workers themselves.

The unions are promoting the illusion that the Wickremasinghe government, which is carrying out an historic assault on workers’ living standards and social rights, can be pressured to change course.