By Param Paramanathan
In Sri Lanka's north, the Tamils are suffering because of the government's greed for more land, whereas in the south, the Sinhalese workers are suffering because of the multinationals' greed for more and more profit.
Workers in the booming export processing zones (EPZs) work in abysmal conditions. H.I. Samanmalee of Dabindu, an organisation fighting for rights of workers in EPZs, points out that workers are exposed to chemicals and gases, maimed in accidents and have even been killed in factories in the zones, where there are no trade unions.
Premalal, 23, an employee of a footwear company, was killed when a machine switched on accidentally and severed his head. The factory management was charged with causing death by a "rash and negligent act".
The Ja-Ela district hospital says that it treats at least four or five workers from the EPZs every day. "Most of them come from severed or smashed fingers and sometimes with buttons sewn onto them", said Dr P.W. De Silva. Officials in a hospital in Biagama, located close to an EPZ, said that at least 50 workers are brought in annually with very serious injuries.
Sri Lanka has three EPZs — in Biagama, in Katunayake (40 km north of the capital, Colombo), and in Galle, on the southern tip of the island — where investors are assured of full repatriation of capital, taxation benefits and complete control over employees.
The majority of workers are women and girls from nearby villages, who live in cramped "boarding houses" in the zone. Because their earnings are often the only source of money for families in the villages, they cling to their jobs even when their lives are at risk.
One such woman, Deepa, 19, left her village to find a job in the EPZ at Katunayake. In June 1986, while she was working on a sewing machine, her eye was injured by needle splinters. She screamed in pain, but work on the shop floor did not stop. "I could not keep my eyes open", she recalls, "but no-one helped. I was sent in the scorching sun with a bleeding eye to the medical centre in the zone."
The nurses there could extract only one splinter from her eye, and told her to go to the eye hospital in Colombo immediately. But the factory supervisor, instead of rushing her to hospital, insisted that she return to the factory and continue work because a production deadline had to be met.
"I tried to work, but couldn't because of the pain", Deepa said. She was taken to the eye hospital the following morning by the still reluctant factory authorities.
After surgery, Deepa was advised to rest for two months, and later told she would have to wear glasses the rest of her life. When she finally returned to work, she discovered that her services had been terminated. The factory did not pay her compensation. In fact, it flatly refused her appeal for money to buy spectacles.
Two weeks later, when the factory workers went on strike demanding compensation for accidents in the workplace, Deepa was paid $19 by her employers. Handing over the money, the factory official rudely told her, "This is out of my own pocket. Don't think you are entitled to it."
Menike Ranatunge, who worked for Smart Shirt Ltd, went blind in one eye when it was hit by a broken needle. She did not show up for work after 14 days of medical leave because the eye had not healed, and was fired without compensation.
Only when a non-government organisation took up her case and went to court did she obtain compensation from her employers, who said in court that Ranatunge had been blind in one eye from birth.
Pathirana, a young girl who worked in the button attachment department of AJS Apparels, lost three fingers in three consecutive years. Ultimately the loss of her fingers cost her the job: her services were terminated because she could not cope with the frantic rush for production deadlines. Workers say there are at least seven other cases of operators losing fingers at AJS Apparels.
Employers take no responsibility to ensure a safe work environment. Samanmalee says that employers rarely pay the amount workers are entitled to as compensation. For example, workers earning $38 a month are legally entitled to $3500 or half that amount for the loss of both or one eye.
The few NGOs within the zones are hampered by tight regulations, and workers are afraid to turn to them because of threats of dismissal. The present government of Chandrika Kumaratunga pledged it would introduce a Workers' Charter during the elections, but because of stiff opposition from the private sector, three years later the charter remains an unfulfilled promise.