Exploitation is the key word for the shattered industry

By Wickramabahu Karunaratna

(March 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The apparel sector, claimed to be the country’s biggest exporter and the largest employer in manufacturing, demands that the government needs to focus urgently on safeguarding jobs from global recession impacts. According to them the government should directly link its rescue package to safeguard existing jobs and to generate new jobs. Their estimates indicate that the global purchases of apparel from Sri Lanka will drop by 10-15% in 2009. Sri Lanka’s two main apparel buying countries - the US and UK - are officially in recession as are so many other Western countries.

his is expected to reduce orders in 2009, increasing pressure on factories to downsize. This can lead to industrial and urban unrest. To help industries hit by the global downturn, the government announced a Rs 16 billion economic stimulus package in December 2008. The apparel industry says that this is not enough to maintain the current level of employment. At this point the industry estimates that it employs about 270,000 people directly. Apparel industrialists have suggested that the government look at the level of employment in September 2008 and give incentives based on maintaining the same level of employment.

However, employment figures may already be dropping as large and long standing apparel manufacturers announced that they were closing down their factories in Free Trade Zones. The reason given was that they could not get enough orders from the US, its main export market, to sustain themselves. However they failed to indicate the problems created by the war and the mismanagement of the regime.

Willing to train them

Most garment factories have by now secured orders for the first quarter of 2009. However, these orders were secured in 2008 and the situation is expected to change in 2009 when the global recession deepens. Given the uncertainty caused by the latter and the continuation of the war, many small and medium scale factories are expected to either shut down or “consolidate” with larger factories. Garment factories are already adjusting to the crisis.

To survive reduced order quantities, factories are following a ‘no-new-hiring’ strategy. Instead of firing workers, factories are simply not re-hiring when workers leave. On the other hand industrialists are planning to “make use” of the tragedy of war for their benefit.

The garment industry is looking at expansion in the North and East. It is claimed that with the war coming to an end, the North and East will offer new opportunities for businesses because of the availability of large scale low-cost labour.

One leading industrialist has ventured to say: “We are told that in the East alone, there are some 13,000 young widows in urgent need of gainful employment. We are willing to train them and provide jobs for them.” The industry is apparently already setting up training centres in the East, with assistance from USAID. They have started a USAID funded training centre in Samanthurai and expect to move into Batticaloa as well. The industry says it needs more funds to expand these employment generation activities and insists government aid should be linked to such ventures.

Big players

Quite innocently industrial bourgeoisie has come out with the hidden agenda of the so-called war against terrorism! Once the Tamil resistance is crushed, the land of Tamil peasants and fisher-folk can be given to the big players for better exploitation and the miserable Tamils could be used as low cost workers. Marx, Lenin and other such proletarian leaders always maintained that so-called patriotic wars aimed at suppressing smaller nations, were really meant for plunder and super exploitation of the oppressed people.

These teachers of the proletariat could be anything, but not fools. In this country too we see the real purpose coming to the surface once the dust of patriotism settles down. What is more tragic is the misery of the poor Sinhala families crying out for their dead soldiers. Because, after all, the Tamils suffered by fighting for their land and natural resources.
-Sri Lanka Guardian