Virus and labour
This year’s International Workers’ Day has dawned amidst doom and gloom across the globe. It is being celebrated without mass gatherings on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers will neither miss nor lose anything owing to the cancellation of May Day processions, which are only a shameful display of the servility of the working class to political leaders who use trade unions to further their own interests.
Chaos that the spread of coronavirus and the resultant lockdowns have wreaked on the world economy has caused widespread unemployment. The current international health emergency has also thrown up new problems and challenges for workers as well as their employers. All these years, May Day has been characterised by workers’ demand for a better deal and their rants against the capitalist class represented by their employers. But, today, coronavirus has caused the employer-employee relations to be redefined; both parties have had to sink their differences and join forces to safeguard their shared future.
The virus may hopefully run its course within the next few months, but the damage it has already inflicted on economies around the world will be there for years to come, and give rise to unforseen issues. Job losses and the attendant economic woes can lead to numerous social problems with the potential to trigger violent upheavals, threatening law and order and social cohesion.
The latest findings of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are scary. They reveal that there has been a continuous sharp decrease in working hours globally due to the pandemic, and about 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy are in the immediate danger of losing their livelihoods.
In the US, the world’s largest economy, more than millions of people have lost jobs, so far, and more are expected to file for unemployment benefits, according to the US Labor Department. The New York Times reported, yesterday, that unemployment claims had topped 30 million, in the US. The plight of workers in the developing countries is far worse. The current level of unemployment, in the US, has been described by the media as the worst since the Great Depression, in the 1930s. It is reported that during the first two months of the Covid-19 outbreak, about five million people found themselves out of work, in China.
Trade unions, around the world, will have to strategise and plan for finding solutions to the present-day problems and facing future challenges. There will have to be a radical rethink of the policies the Sri Lankan trade unions, most of which are mere appendages of political parties. They will have to make constructive interventions in the formulation of the post-Covid-19 state policies as regards economic recovery if workers’ lot is to improve. This is not something they will be able to achieve by adopting a confrontational approach though there may arise certain situations where they have to fight for protecting workers’ rights.
The ILO has urged states to ensure that the measures aimed at economic reactivation ‘follow a job-rich approach, backed by stronger employment policies and institutions, better-resourced and comprehensive social protection systems’. It has also called for international co-ordination on stimulus packages and debt relief to make recovery effective and sustainable, and pointed out that international labour standards, which enjoy tripartite consensus can provide a framework. In this scheme of things, trade unions are of crucial import; they have a pivotal role to play in enabling the post-pandemic economic recovery and safeguarding workers’ interests.
This year’s International Workers’ Day has dawned amidst doom and gloom across the globe. It is being celebrated without mass gatherings on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers will neither miss nor lose anything owing to the cancellation of May Day processions, which are only a shameful display of the servility of the working class to political leaders who use trade unions to further their own interests.
Chaos that the spread of coronavirus and the resultant lockdowns have wreaked on the world economy has caused widespread unemployment. The current international health emergency has also thrown up new problems and challenges for workers as well as their employers. All these years, May Day has been characterised by workers’ demand for a better deal and their rants against the capitalist class represented by their employers. But, today, coronavirus has caused the employer-employee relations to be redefined; both parties have had to sink their differences and join forces to safeguard their shared future.
The virus may hopefully run its course within the next few months, but the damage it has already inflicted on economies around the world will be there for years to come, and give rise to unforseen issues. Job losses and the attendant economic woes can lead to numerous social problems with the potential to trigger violent upheavals, threatening law and order and social cohesion.
The latest findings of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are scary. They reveal that there has been a continuous sharp decrease in working hours globally due to the pandemic, and about 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy are in the immediate danger of losing their livelihoods.
In the US, the world’s largest economy, more than millions of people have lost jobs, so far, and more are expected to file for unemployment benefits, according to the US Labor Department. The New York Times reported, yesterday, that unemployment claims had topped 30 million, in the US. The plight of workers in the developing countries is far worse. The current level of unemployment, in the US, has been described by the media as the worst since the Great Depression, in the 1930s. It is reported that during the first two months of the Covid-19 outbreak, about five million people found themselves out of work, in China.
Trade unions, around the world, will have to strategise and plan for finding solutions to the present-day problems and facing future challenges. There will have to be a radical rethink of the policies the Sri Lankan trade unions, most of which are mere appendages of political parties. They will have to make constructive interventions in the formulation of the post-Covid-19 state policies as regards economic recovery if workers’ lot is to improve. This is not something they will be able to achieve by adopting a confrontational approach though there may arise certain situations where they have to fight for protecting workers’ rights.
The ILO has urged states to ensure that the measures aimed at economic reactivation ‘follow a job-rich approach, backed by stronger employment policies and institutions, better-resourced and comprehensive social protection systems’. It has also called for international co-ordination on stimulus packages and debt relief to make recovery effective and sustainable, and pointed out that international labour standards, which enjoy tripartite consensus can provide a framework. In this scheme of things, trade unions are of crucial import; they have a pivotal role to play in enabling the post-pandemic economic recovery and safeguarding workers’ interests.
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