May Day, May Day! Collective Rights versus Individual Rights

Weakening labour rights and a race to the bottom is never a recipe for inclusive, equitable and sustainable development

When employers are permitted to collectively represent their interests, it is an implicit acknowledgement that there is unity in strength. If so, why should workers, weakly placed in the labour contract, evidenced by the fact that they do not earn a living wage, currently in a poverty trap and earning poverty wages, be curtailed from union representation? The few unions in the apparel sector do have to change their officer constituency and make them more representative of their workers. We are aware that unions need change, but that does not mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater 

The approaching May Day is a good time to offer a deliberated response to Oshadee de Silva’s op-ed “Busting fake unions prevent avenues for better progress” printed on these pages. As long-standing labour scholars, we were perturbed by several unsubstantiated assertions made by de Silva1. Having worked on the apparel sectors from different angles, we want to carefully consider her viewpoints to uphold the collective rights of all Sri Lankans (workers too are Sri Lankan citizens). We do so by engaging with, writing about, and drawing upon scholarship from global production networks, labour geographies, labour law, labour regimes, political economy, feminist perspectives, and labour sociology.

To be sure, Sri Lankan apparel has made a distinctive contribution to the nation’s economy since the late 1970s, with local industrialists (MAS, Brandix, Hirdramani Group, for instance) growing from strength to strength. Many leading production sites are so ‘successful’ that they have become transnational industrialists and expanding to other countries. In short, capital accumulation was not only feasible but enabled by generous incentive structures provided by the State (through various tax breaks) and has come at the back of workers who never (or hardly ever) make a living wage2. To use academic jargon, the surplus value of labour was usurped by the industrial capitalists; if not, the spreading of Sri Lankan capital overseas simply would not have taken place.

Equally, of course, Sri Lanka’s garment sector was at the vanguard by adopting high-value-added production by the time the phasing out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) took place. Likewise, upholding labour conditions before voluntary ethical regimes were rolled out globally – such as the ETI (Ethical Trade Initiative). These are all promising for the apparel industry. However, as we have written, Sri Lankan apparel’s ability to promote itself as an ethical sourcing destination is also an outcome of collective labour struggles and state responses – as it has to do with employers. More specifically, labour struggles, such as the Polytex Garments in the 1980s, were pivotal for a previous government to respond with minimum standards that production sites were to follow2, 3. The State and employers were then responding to the collective struggles of brave women (mostly) workers crying foul at their exploitative labour conditions. Employer magnanimity, it was not. 

These achievements accord with both Sri Lankan labour history and global evidence. Where labour standards are part of the social democratic contract, it is because collective labour struggles and union efforts have helped secure and enshrine them. In Sri Lanka, the absence of child labour and historically universal rights to education and health care (although consistently under threat with austerity policies) are illustrations of a state responding to union demands and collective labour struggles. Individualised labour rights have never secured these or similar gains elsewhere internationally; it will never do this because a collective voice is always stronger and more effective than individualised and scattered initiatives. 

The developed world is where it is because unions and collective labour voices have been at the forefront of struggling for a fair deal for workers. In the UK, for instance, former child labourers via unions and as parliamentarians (i.e. when adult child labourers were elected as MPs) were catalysts for eradicating the scourges of child labour from Industrial Britain4. 

Sri Lankan apparel has indeed captured the spotlight since COVID-19 for multiple reasons. One reason was the lack of living wages brought to plain sight the poverty of workers living conditions5. The drop in demand the country faced was comparable to the dramatic decline that competing countries in the region faced too6. The Secretary General of JAAF (Joint Apparel Association Forum) Yohan Lawrence in an interview in 2024 notes a variation but remarks that the apparel sector has operated consistently at around the same level7. JAAF – Sri Lanka is a collective body representing the interests of industrialists: large, medium, and small enterprises. In other words, a unionised body representing employer interests. 

When employers are permitted to collectively represent their interests, it is an implicit acknowledgement that there is unity in strength. If so, why should workers, weakly placed in the labour contract, evidenced by the fact that they do not earn a living wage, currently in a poverty trap and earning poverty wages, be curtailed from union representation? The few unions in the apparel sector do have to change their officer constituency and make them more representative of their workers. We are aware that unions need change, but that does not mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The union density of workers in Sri Lanka is low at present. Moreover, freedom of association is a constitutional right in Sri Lanka. Additionally, the country is a signatory to fundamental ILO Convention 87 (Freedom of Association and the Protection of Right to Organize 1948; adopted in 1995) and Convention 98 (Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention 1949, adopted in 1972). Is Oshadee de Silva’s analysis (based on broad brushstrokes) a call for Sri Lanka to keep abrogating its conventions to water down the protective mechanisms in place for labour? Is it to weaken the place of labour and our workers (also citizens of the country with equal constitutional rights) and make the proposed and yet contentious labour reforms legitimate?

We would urge caution. Weakening labour rights and a race to the bottom is never a recipe for inclusive, equitable and sustainable development anywhere, including in Sri Lanka. It is a class war waged against the weakest members of our society, as was the case with the domestic debt restructuring placed on the backs of workers8. It is a corruption of capitalism that continually devalues labour and robs workers of their rights. It is worthwhile reminding that it is malnourished, poverty-stricken workers who underpin the backbone of Sri Lanka’s economy – including through a debt crisis. Weakened collective labour rights, would end up exacerbating already worsening inequalities, strengthening business (including corrupt corporate practices) and continually keeping Sri Lanka in a perpetual state of political, economic, and social instability. Is that what the country ought to compromise on? We think not. 

Signatories:

Kanchana N Ruwanpura (PhD – Cantab), Professor – Development Geography, University of Gothenburg, SWEDEN and Co-Founder, Institute of Political Economy – Sri Lanka

Shyamain Wickramasingha (PhD – NUS, Singapore), Research Fellow – Economic Geography, University of Sussex Business School, UK

Achalie Kumarage, PhD Candidate, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Jayanthi Lingham (PhD – SOAS, University of London), Research Associate - Centre for Care, University of Sheffield, UK

Samanthi Gunawardana (PhD – University of Melbourne), Senior Lecturer, Monash University, Australia

References:

1https://www.ft.lk/opinion/Busting-fake-unions-presents-avenues-for-better-progress/14-758653#:~:text=The%20Sri%20Lankan%20apparel%20industry,COVID%2D19%2Dled%20lockdowns

2Ruwanpura, Kanchana N (2022) Garments without Guilt? Global Labour Justice and Ethical Codes in Sri Lankan Apparels Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

3Gunawardana, Samanthi J (2010) “What does transnational labour organising and solidarity mean for Sri Lankan free trade zone women workers?” Global Restructuring, Labour and The Challenges for Transnational Solidarity. A Bieler & I Lindberg (eds) Abingdon Oxon UK: Routledge, p. 87-100

4Humphries, Jane (2010) Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

5Wickramasingha, S. (2023). Re-imagining vulnerabilities: The COVID-19 pandemic and informalised migrant apparel workers in Sri Lanka. ICES Working Paper, Colombo. 

6https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Threads-of-Resilience-A-closer-look-at-the-intricate-stitches-of-Sri-Lankas-apparel-sector-as-it-braves-through-challenges/273-281312

7https://www.themorning.lk/articles/KT7NkCfMfIWqsba7aXOf

8Ghosh, Jayati and Kanchana N Ruwanpura (2023) “Sri Lanka’s Dangerous Domestic Restructuring” Project Syndicate September 13th 20223 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sri-lanka-government-imf-austerity-deal-will-exacerbate-debt-crisis-by-jayati-ghosh-and-kanchana-n-ruwanpura-2023-09