SRI LANKA: Labour Reforms are Friendly to Industry, Not to Women

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Aug 16 2002 (IPS) - The Sri Lankan government is easing restrictions on overtime work for women, in a move that it says will help dismantle archaic labour laws that inhibit foreign investment but which trade unionists say would push female workers into forced labour.

The legislation, the first in a series of changes to labour reforms, sets down in black and white a standing arrangement between the textile industry and the government.

But it does little by way of offering legal protection for the nation’s 150,000, mostly female, textile factory workers.

On Tuesday, parliament approved amendments to the 1942 Factories Ordinance, deciding to allow women to clock in 60 hours of overtime per month or 720 hours a year compared with a maximum 100 hours per year earlier.

The proposal to ease the overtime restrictions had been made during the former People’s Alliance government in the mid-1990s, but was shot down by trade unions.

Labour Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said the new law was not only necessary due to the vast changes in the global marketplace, but because it was a vital anti-discrimination issue.

“This restriction applied only to females while there was no upper limit for males where overtime work was concerned,” he said.

But these arguments anger trade unionists, who say that the law would result in forced labour on women workers, especially those working in the country’s export-driven free trade zones.

Other activists however said that it was inevitable and that younger women in the workforce wanted more overtime anyway, because basic wages were insufficient.

Bala Tampoe, one of the oldest trade union leaders in Asia and general secretary of the powerful Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU), denounced the move and said it would force women to work overtime against their will.

“The government is doing this to please foreign investors and garment factory owners,” he said.

Anton Marcus, general secretary of the Free Trade Zone Workers Union, accused the minister of reneging on a promise that the rule would be voluntary and not compulsory.

He said that at a meeting on Aug. 8, the minister agreed with the National Labour Advisory Council — a tripartite body of government officials, employers, unions and workers — to extend overtime hours by 48 hours a month and that it would be entirely voluntary.

“But the government has broken this promise and has now introduced a clause saying workers can refuse on reasonable grounds. Employers can decide what reasonable grounds is and force workers to do overtime,” Marcus said.

The extra overtime rule would mostly affect Sri Lanka’s free trade zones across the country, 90 percent of whose work force is made up of women workers.

Most of the factories in the zones, which first appeared here in 1978, produce garments for export that carry some of the world’s most popular labels such as ‘Marks & Spencers’ and ‘Levi’s’.

Garment exports are Sri Lanka’s biggest foreign exchange earner. Sri Lankan companies are also opening factories in the Middle East and Africa, using Sri Lankan workers, to take advantage of export-quota shortfalls of those countries, before the quota regime under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is phased out by 2005.

Joseph Arulvasagam, a trade union advisor, says the new law puts women in a dilemma. “They want more work because wages at 3,000 rupees (31 U.S. dollars) a month are low, but will factory owners put undue pressure on them?”

He says that as it is, women are virtually coerced to work overtime to complete the shipping deadlines of most factories. “Women are reluctant to complain, fearing harassment or delayed increments even though the law says overtime is voluntary. It puts them in a difficult position.”

However, Britto Fernando, labour law advisor at the Solidarity Centre at the Katunayake free trade zone near the country’s airport, says young female workers do want more work to supplement their basic wage.

“When some female trade union activists wanted to launch a protest campaign against working on a Sunday, female workers objected saying they preferred to work on holidays rather than stay in their boarding houses,” she said.

The women said they get a free meal and refreshments if they worked on a Sunday.

The bulk of Sri Lanka’s female garment factory workers come from distant rural villages and stay in cramped living conditions near their workplaces, with five or 10 women typically sharing a room to save on costs.

Women who commute from their homes to work everyday are reluctant to work extended overtime hours, but they are in a minority.

“If we get better wages, there is no need for overtime. We are compelled to work overtime because we need the money. Even if we refuse, we are scolded by managers and harassed,” said a female garment factory worker who asked not to be named.

Ashroff Omar, managing director of MAST Lanka, one of the biggest garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka, rejects the trade union argument that factories force women to work overtime. “The women want more work because the fixed basic wage is low,” he argued.

He said the law previously allowed only 100 hours of overtime per year, while most factories were providing 60 hours overtime per month to women to meet buyers deadlines and to keep to their tight schedules.

“This extra overtime work for women was permitted under an administrative arrangement with the government, and the new law is merely formalising what in practice has been happening,” Omar said.

Omar said foreign buyers like ‘Marks & Spencers’ wanted factories to comply or change the archaic rules, and threatened to take their orders elsewhere if this did not happen.

Chandra Jayaratne, former chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce that has been pushing the government for changes in labour laws, said extra overtime work for women was the first in a series of industry-friendly reforms the government has promised to implement.

But trade unionist Arunvasagam sees it differently. “Women are exploited in the free trade zones, while foreign investors come here for quick profits.”

“Also companies deter unions from being formed by breaking up two shifts into three, using the same number of workers and reducing the number of overtime hours,” adds Arunvasagam.