Abstract
In The Labour Movement in the Global South: Trade Unions in Sri Lanka, author S. Janaka Biyanwila takes a multidisciplinary approach, drawing upon political economy, labor process theory, feminist economics, labor history, social movement theory, critical social psychology, and critical realism to examine the state of trade unions in the Global South by highlighting the political, economic, and industrial relations systems in Sri Lanka (183). The majority of trade unions in Sri Lanka are dependent on political parties, a product of their role in Sri Lanka’s struggle for independence, which in combination with the neoliberal economic policies instituted in the 1970s and the enduring ideologies of ethno-nationalism and patriarchy, has greatly hindered the effectiveness of labor unions to improve the conditions of workers’ lives inside and outside of the workplace. Following the historical account of the development of trade unions, Biyanwila utilizes three case studies of independent unions to illustrate that independence from political parties is not enough if the labor movement in Sri Lanka (and the Global South) is to be revitalized. He argues that it will require unions that adopt social movement unionism that moves beyond the narrow self-interest of their members to become civil society actors who will promote democratic unionism and engage in contentious collective action that will build worker solidarity at local, national, and international levels, the result of which will contribute to the dismantling of the ethnic, patriarchal, and economic hegemonies in which trade unions are currently embedded.
The first chapters following the introduction provide the context of the analysis by exhaustively tracing the historical development of trade unions in Sri Lanka from the late nineteenth century through their struggle for independence in 1947 and until the present day. The first chapter, in which Biyanwila identifies three distinct phases of development, encompasses the years prior to the enactment of neoliberal policies in the late 1970s. The first phase (1893-1930) recounts the rise of trade unions largely as part of an anti-colonial social movement that built worker solidarity and the beginning of the co-option of trade unions by political parties to combine the worker and class struggles of the labor movement with the overall struggle for independence. The second phase (1931-1956) includes the victory of independence and the proliferation of trade unions in the Sri Lankan labor movement, including the radical communist and socialist working-class parties that focused on the need for social justice. It also details the constriction of the labor movement due to the increased integration of trade unions into political parties that introduced a Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalist project that exacerbated the ethnic divisions within Sri Lanka and weakened the focus on collective worker struggles and sought to restrict trade unions to the workplace. The final phase identified in this chapter (1956-1977) was a period in which Sri Lanka adopted a closed national economy to diminish its dependence on its former colonizers. The aforementioned nationalist tendencies were strengthened and a number of new fractures and alliances between trade unions and political parties grew during the period. However, through the contradictions of a labor movement led by unions subject to the whims of political parties, an outbreak of radical youth uprisings occurred, which were harshly repressed through state violence, a trend that would grow in later years.
The labor movement in Sri Lanka was greatly weakened following the enactment of neoliberal policies of market deregulation and privatization in 1977 in that the neoclassical view of trade unions as narrowly focused interest groups that hinder market forces was propagated. The second chapter of the book recounts the merger of neoliberal policies with the Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalist agenda during the period of 1977 to the present, which describes an increase of focus on consumerist individualism and a reframing of unions as harmful to the prosperity of the nation due to their interference with the market. This was and continues to be enforced by an authoritarian nationalist government that increasingly uses state violence to repress dissidents and unions, especially in the free trade zones that have proliferated since the late 1970s. These attitudes perpetuated by the state further restricted unions to the domain of the workplace as unions that seek to counter such forces may be met with harsh repression. It also influenced the industrial relations system by expanding the power of capital/management and created a more hostile environment towards unions. Thus, unions are less likely to try to influence politics by participating in social movements to expand workers’, women’s, and human rights, which in this absence allows for the maintenance of patriarchal, religious, and ethnic hegemonies.
The second half of the book moves from a historical account of the Sri Lankan labor movement to three case studies of independent unions that provide a comparison between political, economic, and social movement unionism and show that despite the hostile environment in which unions are embedded, social movement unionism can flourish. In chapter three, Biyanwila dissects the Public Services United Nurses Union (PSUNU), which is the largest public sector nurses’ union and practices economic unionism. Despite participating in movement unionism in the past, the PSUNU exhibits the narrow self-interest that Biyanwila is critical of in that it largely confines itself to the workplace and the improvement of the nursing profession. This restriction is partly attributed to the top-down, bureaucratic service model of the union in which members are content with the centralization of power within the leadership (mostly men). Although the PSUNU participates in alliances, they are often temporary and avoid opportunities to extend these ties to social movement organizations, such as those in the women’s movement, which could help to improve the conditions of all women workers, not just those in the nursing profession. The second case study, the subject of chapter four, is on the National Union of Workers (NUW), a plantation trade union that like the nurses’ union is primarily comprised of women and is also largely composed of hill-country Tamils. The NUW practices independent political unionism in that, unlike the PSUNU, it engages issues outside of strictly occupational issues. The NUW formed its own political party in 1990 so that, unlike the norm in Sri Lanka, the party is subordinate to and therefore serves the union. However, the NUW also falls short of social movement unionism in that the issues that it undertakes outside of their occupation largely concern the tea plantation estate communities. The union seeks to improve living and working conditions in the tea plantations, especially concerning the acquisition of social provisions, but it does not ally itself with international social movements that could encompass more workers. This is partially due to the patriarchal structures that not only dominate the NUW, in which there is a centralization of power in which men hold most of the leadership positions, but also the same structures that dominate the tea plantations in general. Furthermore as a union of hill-country Tamils, the NUW is subject to anti-Tamil marginalization and even violence by the Sinhala-nationalist state.
The third case study, which Biyanwila holds up as the guiding light of social movement unionism, is the Free Trade Zone Workers’ Union (FTZWU), which was created out of a partnership between the Industrial Transport General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) and the Women’s Centre (WC) in 2000. The FTZWU engages in social movement unionism despite organizing female workers in the notoriously anti-union free trade zones by creating strategic alliances for both short-term and long-term goals with both other trade unions and other organizations, such as NGOs concerned with human rights, women’s rights, and workers’ rights within Sri Lanka and internationally. Going beyond these alliances by using the decentralization of organizational knowledge and the encouragement of education about both social movements and organizing, the FTZWU allows for membership participation and a bottom-up approach to unionism. Furthermore, the leadership provided by activists who were radicalized in the 1970s and who are invested in producing a second generation of activist leaders enables the union to sustain this social movement unionism and offer an alternative to oppose the patriarchal and ethno-nationalist hegemonies that hinder the labor movement.
The concluding chapter, one of the strengths of the book, gives a good summation of the differences between the unions highlighted in the case studies as well as the overarching themes of why social movement unionism is necessary if not only the Sri Lankan labor movement is to be revitalized, but also if civil society is to be improved. However, despite a strong identification and description of what separates the independent unions with social movement perspectives from those who practice economic or political unionism, it is unclear as to how these latter unions are to make the transition to social movement unionism as no concrete steps are offered by Biyanwila. For example, it is unclear how the NUW will obtain the necessary leadership, which was so integral in the development of the FTZWU, when it is embedded in a patriarchal structure with men in the leadership and women workers faced with unreasonable time constraints. It is not to say that it is impossible, but there is a dearth of solutions offered for such situations. The only other weakness is that the writing is occasionally convoluted and repetitive, but it is understandable due to the complexity of the issues involved. Overall, this made for an interesting read and I would recommend it for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminar on labor movements in the Global South. If used in such a setting, I believe that the lack of concrete steps towards social movement unionism could actually prove beneficial in that it could provide for some very interesting discussion.