• Concerns remain about undermining worker rights

Amnesty International, Clean Clothes Campaign, and Human Rights Watch on Monday (27 May) called on the Government to immediately halt the current proposals for labour law reforms, noting a need to “ensure that reforms to the labour laws are only taken after due consultation with workers and their representatives”.

In 2023, the Labour Ministry introduced draft labour legislation, which has since garnered heavy criticism. 

“While there has been no clarity around the proposed timetable for discussion and passage of the draft, we understand that the proposed unified labour code could be placed for voting in Parliament soon,” said the statement. 

According to the statement, the proposed law contains many articles that weaken the rights and protection of workers by removing international minimum standards and rights.

“It increases factory management’s power over workers by taking away protections against excessive overtime and arbitrary dismissal and weakening workers’ right to freedom of association. 

“Among the proposals are reforms that seek to remove overtime pay for a workday that exceeds eight hours; remove the 12-hour-per-week overtime limit; allow employers to engage workers on shifts for up to 16 hours with just an hour’s break and without any overtime payment; remove protections against unfair dismissal of workers who are seeking to form unions at work; introduce unilateral powers to employers to dismiss permanent workers and fixed-term contract workers without reasonable and sufficient notice and adequate severance; and remove safeguards around night work for women workers.” 

Non-consultative process

United Federation of Labour President Swasthika Arulingam told The Sunday Morning that the union she was representing, along with three others, had been removed from the National Labour Advisory Council last year, and added that the issues in the consultative process had arisen because the council was not being convened in a timely manner. 

“These problems are happening because the Labour Minister is not calling the National Labour Advisory Council. Last year he removed four non party-affiliated unions, including ours, from the council. After that, the council had convened three meetings and then he has completely stopped calling it,” she explained.

Thus, she alleged that the Labour Minister had created his own version of a consultative process. “He had an event to consult which was only in Sinhala. Not only were Tamil-speaking people left out, but the correct procedure was completely avoided without calling a tripartite consultative process. Our union wrote to the ministry about three months ago, requesting a Tamil draft of the proposed reforms, but we have had no response.” 

45-hour work week?

Commenting on the proposal to restructure the work day, Arulingam pointed out that this could break up the eight-hour work day without allowing for overtime pay for employees. 

“The concept of the eight-hour work day is completely broken. When that happens, workers lose their right to rest and overtime compensation.”

Part-time work

She further said that it could introduce part-time work for students who are above 16 years old, which would lead to the exploitation of children and youth.

“The other aspect is that when you introduce part-time work, employers are going to start recruiting women on a part-time basis so that they don’t have to provide maternity pay. When you introduce part-time work without any kind of protection against discrimination, women are forced into exploitative work. We are not against part-time work but the way it is being introduced is going to give the employer a lot of discretion over how they’re going to use it.” 

She went on to say that there was also a push to introduce nighttime work for women (currently this remains possible only for women in the BPO sector), which could result in more exploitation of women.

“We have problems with the existing labour laws as is – for instance, there are no workplace anti-harassment laws as employers have been lobbying and blocking them through frivolous excuses. That has not been addressed at all.”

Right to hire and fire

Meanwhile, Attorney-at-Law Migara Doss told The Sunday Morning that the current law had restrictions on firing employees for reasons other than disciplinary ones.

“There is a proposal to do away with the restrictions, which would allow the employer to hire and fire. There is another proposal to allow employers to terminate on non-performance of work, which is a very subjective and broad area.”

He added that such reforms would provide employers an unrestricted right to terminate employees. 

Garment sector 

Amnesty International, Clean Clothes Campaign, and Human Rights Watch have also raised concerns about how the proposed reforms would affect the country’s garment industry.

“We fear for the future of Sri Lanka’s garment industry – not just for workers, but also how the proposed reforms would negatively impact brands’ human rights risk assessments and responsible sourcing – if these changes are pushed through.”

Therefore, their joint statement said that the draft laws would threaten Sri Lanka’s compliance with international law, including International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions 87, 98, 144, and 190. 

“The Sri Lankan garment industry has tried to set itself apart from other garment producing countries with the slogan ‘Garments Without Guilt’. The imminent reforms threaten to make Sri Lankan’s garment factories synonymous with the worst forms of sweatshop labour instead.”