Union Strategies in the Sri Lankan Tea Plantations: Rediscovering the Movement Dimension

Abstract

With the launch of export-oriented industrialisation policies in 1977, trade unions in Sri Lanka entered a new set of challenges. The state promotion of labour market deregulation and privatisation has directly undermined union strategies based on bureaucratic modes of organising worker solidarity. Nevertheless, among the gamut of union strategies are tendencies characterising what is described as social movement unionism (SMU). The SMU approach focuses on strategies of independent unions combining participatory democracy internally with structured alliances externally. This paper looks at the case of a union in the tea plantations and its potential towards developing a SMU strategic orientation. In particular, the discussion focuses on the deepening of democratic tendencies within the unions which may be capable of reinforcing the movement dimension of unions.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

CENWOR (1985) UN Decade for Women: Progress and Achievements of Women in Sri Lanka, Centre for Women's Research, Colombo.

Hobsbawm

(1989) Politics for a Rational Left: Political Writing, 1977–1988, Verso, Lonon.

Johnston

(1999) ‘Organise for What? The resurgence of labour as citizenship movement’, in Katz

and Turner

(Eds), Rekindling the Movement: Labor's Quest for Relevance in the 20th Century, Cornell University Press, Ithica.

Kurien

(1998) ‘Tamil women on Sri Lankan plantations: Labour control and patriarchy’, in Jain

and Reddock

(Eds), Women Plantation Workers: International Experiences, Oxford, New York.

Labour Department (1999) Annual Report, Colombo.

Lambert

(1989) ‘Social Movement Unionism: The Urgent Task of Definition. Comments on Peter Waterman's Brief Note on Social Movement Unionism’ Department of Social Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth.

Maliyagoda

Jayaratne

(2000) ‘Plantation Workers' Collective Agreements: Historical background and analysis — Part two: The collective agreement of December 1998’, in Voice of the Voiceless, April, No. 75. CPSA, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

1998', in Voice of the Voiceless, April, No. 75. CPSA, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Manikam

P.P.

(1995) Tea Plantations in Crisis: An Overview, SSA, Colombo.

10.

Moody

(1997) Workers in a Lean World, Unions in the International Economy, Verso, Lonon.

11.

Seidman

G.W.

(1994) Manufacturing Militancy: Workers' Movements in Brazil and South Africa, 1970–1985, University of California Press: Berkeley CA.

12.

Shanmugaratnam

(1997) The Privatisation of Tea Plantations. SSA, Colombo.

13.

Vijeysandiran

(1991) ‘Poverty on the plantations’, in Voice of the Voiceless, No. 44, pp. 7–9.

14.

Wainwright

(1994) Arguments for a New Left: Answering the Free Market Right, Blackwell, Oxford.

15.

Waterman

(1993) ‘Social movement unionism: a new model for a new world order’, Review, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 76–81.

16.

Workers Educators' Association of Sri Lanka (1995) Trade Union Centenary in Sri Lanka: 1893–1993, WEAL: Sri Lanka.