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Militant Public Service Trade Unionism in a New State: The Case of Ceylon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
Rapid growth in the size and militancy of trade union movements has been a common development in the newly independent states of Asia since the end of colonial rule less than two decades ago. In these states, and in the more recently independent African states as well, government employees frequently constitute one of the principal groups of organized workers. Public servants' right of association and right to strike or demonstrate have been among the insistent questions confronting the governments of the new states.
In the areas of Asia formerly under British rule, public servants enjoy the right to form trade unions with some restrictions and, except in Pakistan, trade unionism in the public service has expanded considerably. In India, government employees other than industrial workers are allowed to organize subject to restrictions limiting membership or leadership in their trade unions to public servants and prohibiting political activity by the unions.
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References
1 Government of India, Ministry of Finance, Commission of Enquiry on Emoluments and Conditions of Service of Central Government Employees, 1957–59, Report (Delhi, 1959), pp. 534–538.Google Scholar
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9 Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, No. 15 of 1948.
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27 RSCC, II, 103.
28 First and Second Interim Reports …, pp. 5–6.
29 Until 1964, Ceylon contained three Marxist parties, all active in the labor movement. The largest in terms of parliamentary strength and trade union following has been the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), an affiliate of the Trotskyist Fourth International. The others are the Ceylon Communist Party and the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP). The latter party, then known as the Viplavakari (i.e., Revolutionary) Lanka Sama Samaja Party, joined with S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's non-Marxist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna coalition which won the 1956 election. When the coalition broke up in 1959, the Viplavakari Lanka Sama Samaja Party assumed the name of the defunct coalition. In 1964, the Communist Party split into pro-Moscow and pro-Peking groups, each claiming to be the legitimate Ceylon Communist Party, and a small group split away from the LSSP to form the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary Section). See my “The Marxists and Coalition Government in Ceylon,” Asian Survey, V, 2 (February, 1965), 120–124.Google Scholar
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52 Based on conversations with trade union leaders and Government and opposition politicians between June and August, 1965.
53 Reports on the Visit …, p. 58.
54 RSCC, I, 48–51.
55 Ibid., pp. 53–54.
56 For discussions of the social and economic position of the clerical workers, see Tambiah, S. J., “Ceylon,” in Lambert, Richard D. and Hoselitz, Bert F. (eds.), The Role of Savings and Wealth in Southern Asia and the West (Paris: UNESCO, 1963), pp. 61–62Google Scholar; and Ryan, Bryce, “Status, Achievement and Education in Ceylon,” Journal of Asian Studies, XX, 4 (August, 1961), 470–475.Google Scholar The position of the clerical workers in Ceylon seems to be fairly typical of their situation in underdeveloped countries. See Hoselitz, Bert F., “The Recruitment of White-Collar Workers in Underdeveloped Countries,” International Social Science Bulletin, VI, 3 (1954), 433–442.Google Scholar
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63 Ibid., pp. 104–109; Reports on the Visit …, p. 58.
64 Trade Union activity in expressing public service protest in Ceylon appears to be comparable to appeals for judicial intervention as an expression of protest in the public service of Pakistan. See Braibanti, Ralph, “Public Bureaucracy and Judiciary in Pakistan,” in LaPalombara, Joseph (ed.), Bureaucracy and Political Development (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 360–440.Google Scholar
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