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FUTA strike: Govt. cancels plans to use force

By Namini Wijedasa  http://www.lakbimanews.lk 

The government has cancelled plans to use forced arbitration – an internationally criticized practice – to settle the two-month-old strike by university lecturers. 
Economic Affairs Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who held another round of talks with the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) on Friday night, confirmed that the Labour Department has been instructed to stop the proceedings. 
FUTA was called to the Ministry of Labour on September 10 and handed a letter stating that its ‘industrial dispute’ with the University Grants Commission (UGC) will be settled through arbitration. The union was asked to nominate an arbitrator on its behalf. 
The academics maintained, however, that their action could not be termed an ‘industrial dispute’ between FUTA and the UGC. “The issues raised by FUTA are policy related and need to be addressed through good faith discussions,” a statement said. “We have sought legal opinion on this issue and we have been advised that we need not comply with the request to seek arbitration.”
The website fairarbitration.com explains that, in forced arbitration, a company requires a consumer or employer to agree to submit any dispute to arbitration. “The individual is required to waive their right to sue, to participate in a class action lawsuit, or to appeal,” it states. 

Jailbird minister
Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake – whose relations with academics continue to deteriorate – supported the use of arbitration in the dispute. In a recent interview with LAKBIMAnEWS he said that if FUTA does not return to work, “then we will be forced to seek the intervention of the labour commissioner to resolve this matter once and for all.”
FUTA reacted against Dissanayake with a stinging statement that said, among other things: “The uncouthness of the minister has no bounds, which had previously landed him even in jail. Placing a jailbird as a minister of Higher Education and the meagre funding allocations (to education) in itself shows the attitude of the government to education in the country.”
Friday’s meeting with Rajapaksa lasted around two hours, ending past 10.30pm. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri, FUTA convenor, said he felt positive about the meeting. The minister also revealed that the two sides are edging closer to a resolution. He said he hoped the strike would be called off this week, once several scheduled meetings are completed. 
But Mahim Mendis, FUTA spokesman, said yesterday that, “We shall not end this struggle until there is clear agreement. The two mammoth processions are planned for the 24th (September) with joint trade unions and students.” There is also to be a public rally with students and trade unions on September 20 in Getambe, Kandy. 

Meeting positive
Meanwhile, FUTA has also set up a special fund for its members who have not been paid since the strike started on July 4. In a letter currently in circulation, the union states that its members are facing financial difficulties. FUTA is seeking donations or to sell t-shirts at Rs800 each. The fund, which was launched last week, is yet to attract any high-profile contributors. 
“It is highly likely that we will not be paid this month either,” the letter says. “This money will also go towards legal costs for FUTA with regard to certain cases that have to be filed on behalf of members who have been victimized due to their participation in trade union action.”
Minister Rajapaksa was hopeful that the dispute would be settled on “Monday or Tuesday.” “The main thing is that after we decide on something, they will have to call off their action,” he stressed. “They can’t have protests. We have been very specific now on what we can do and what we cannot do.”
The minister revealed that minutes of FUTA’s last meeting with P.B. Jayasundere – at which the treasury secretary had made several verbal commitments – are now being drafted. These will be handed over to the union. 
At Friday’s discussion, FUTA requested Rajapaksa to convene a meeting with vice chancellors of all universities. This is likely to take place tomorrow, the minister said. He also said the government would release to FUTA its “action plan” on salaries. 
Meanwhile, Devasiri told LAKBIMAnEWS that the meeting with Rajapaksa was “quite positive.” He said FUTA representatives had steeled themselves for a discussion on forced arbitration. “We actually prepared ourselves,” he elaborated. “Our membership had the strong view that we must not give into that pressure. But in the end the government realized it’s not going to work for them and backtracked. We heard that SB is not in the same mood, but that’s ok!”
Devasiri confirmed that there will be another meeting. “Basil has a different approach,” he reflected. “I don’t know if it’s tactical or not. It probably is. But we don’t care too much about it if we can come to an agreement.” 
Asked what was offered last week, Devasiri said: “It was what we had (already) discussed. We had an understanding the week before, that there should be an agreement with the treasury secretary to address the salary issue. There are also some other issues, specially related to university autonomy.” But he refused to disclose more, saying it is too premature to release details. 
“Everything depends on whether or not this process is going to continue,” he asserted. “What happens often is that there is a positive process of discussion, then some other parties intervene – like SB or UGC, talking about arbitration, and everything takes a different shape. If the same thing happens again, it’s going to be a disaster.”

Mass campaign goes on
Asked specifically whether FUTA will call off its strike next week, he replied: “It’s too early to say that but we will try our best to make use of the opportunity that opened up yesterday (Friday).”
Devasiri confirmed that FUTA’s mass campaign will continue under the broader slogan of ‘Save State Education.’ Students have also been invited to participate in its public rallies – something which FUTA had avoided in the past. 
Asked why its policy had changed, Devasiri said there were two schools of thought within FUTA regarding the involvement of students. “One concern among a section of members is that getting students to come will project a negative image about FUTA, that we are using students to our advantage,” he explained. 
Devasiri also confessed that all members were “not very happy about the kind of approach the students follow in terms of their methods of demonstration and agitation.” “At the same time,” he continued, “there is another view that the students are the main stakeholders. We cannot just ignore them.”
Asked whether FUTA will take responsibility for students missing their exam deadlines and their graduation dates, Devasiri said academics will discuss how to make up for lost time. “It’s not easy but we could probably shorten the term a little bit,” he said. “We have to find a solution.”
He said faculty board meetings will be held as soon as the strike is over. “We will devise a plan,” he added.

Today’s lecture: Army playing police role

Taking over the police role, the Army has now been deployed for crowd control with their new gear as seen in this picture where striking university academics are explaining their cause to soldiers while they sell T-shirts with their protest slogans. Pic by Mangala Weerasekera

Students helpless and angry

Mirudhula Thambiah reports, the SUNDAYTIMES

While the deadlock continues between the Government and university unions, students say they have no place to study and no place to stay.

View(s): 48

The ongoing strike by university staff and the Government’s continuing lack of initiative to resolve the crisis has left students confused, frustrated and angry.

Hear our voices: Students on a protest march on Thursday in front of the UGC. Pic by Amila Gamage

Science student Yomal Jayasinghe’s dream of qualifying and getting a decent job becomes less achievable by the day as universities remain shut and academics continue to agitate for salary and other reforms.

The 24-year-old student from Hambantota said he did not even have a place to stay, as the hostels were also closed.
“I am staying in a temple because I haven’t a place to go to,” Mr. Jayasinghe told the Sunday Times. “We were in the hostel having lunch when campus officials burst in and ordered us to leave immediately.

My parents are not rich. They are depending on my getting a good job after I graduate, but how can I get a good job if I am cannot complete my degree?”

Ruvini Senaratne, a student of the Faculty of Arts at the Colombo University, said the past three months have been an “utter waste of time”, with campuses shut down. “I am in my second year and we were to complete the year’s curriculum last month. We have not been able to take any exams. We worked so hard to get a place in university.

“They say the universities have reopened, but we can’t even enter the library to do any reference work. This is pathetic. And no one seems to be doing anything to resolve the issues. The authorities simply have no idea what the students are going through and what’s going on with the lecturers. I have started following a private study course, so as not to waste time. This situation is so unfair to students who can’t afford to spend on private study courses.”

Susantha Rohana, Arts Student

Lakmali Hemachandra, law student

Law student Awantha Nagahamutha comes from Galle and was a hostel student at the Colombo University. “The universities closed in the middle of our exams. I have done two subjects, with one more to go. Because the hostels are closed, outstation students like me have to do part-time jobs and follow part-time study courses,” he said.

Third-year law student Lakmali Hemachandra complained that all the other universities have opened except the Colombo campus.

“The authorities are politicising the lecturers’ demands. The Government should be responding to our problems. Arrogance and ignorance will not settle issues. I am completely confused. “I was in the middle of my exams when the campus closed.

And now I can’t even enter the library to study. To let this situation drag on for so long is utterly unfair,” Ms. Hemachandra said, adding that all state universities should be “depoliticized, and the vice-chancellors should be more considerate of the students.”

Arts student Susantha Rohana said the students were closely watching the situation. “The universities and hostels have been closed to prevent action by student unions and to stop students from organising protests. I come from a rural area in Moneragala. I have no place to go. It is hard to find decent accommodation. I have paid all my hostels fees.”

The Sunday Times learns that some university students are applying for places in foreign universities.

Arbitration is for labourers – not university academics, says union group

Professors and lecturers will continue their strike until the Government comes up with an acceptable strategy to resolve the deadlock at universities around the country, Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) General Secretary Dr. Terrance Madujith told the Sunday Times.

Heavy army presence at the FUTA protest in front of the Colombo Fort Railway station on Thursday. Pic by Mangala Weerasekera

FUTA representatives had discussions with the Commissioner General of Labour early this week. The Government has called for arbitration to resolve the issues, but the FUTA insists on direct engagement with the authorities.

Last month FUTA members had three meetings with labour officials and also met the Minister of Labour, Gamini Lokuge.
The Commissioner General of Labour views the ongoing university strike as an industrial dispute between FUTA and the University Grants Commission (UGC), and therefore should be resolved in a process of arbitration. The FUTA was asked to nominate an arbitrator on their behalf.

“We do not see this as an industrial dispute,” Dr. Madujith told the Sunday Times. “We are academics, not labourers. Only labourers submit to arbitration. FUTA vehemently opposes the idea of arbitration. We have very broad demands of national importance.”

Following the discussions with the Labour Commission, FUTA’s executive committee held a meeting at the Open University.
“At the executive committee meeting, the FUTA unanimously decided not to engage with any arbitration committee. We see our demands as being of the utmost importance, and we insist on negotiating with the government,” Dr. Madujith added.

The FUTA has set up a fund to help academics who need financial aid while the university deadlock continues.
“The fund was launched for members who need financial assistance. We plan to give loans to the most needy lecturers. But the fund has to be formalised first. The Government is already making false allegations about FUTA going around collecting dollars. We have to formalise everything and make everything transparent.”

The FUTA plans to hold a rally in Colombo on Sunday 28 to demonstrate solidarity with the other trade unions. There will also be a protest march from Kandy and Galle on Monday the 24th. The FUTA is collecting signatures for a petition to support its main demands. The target is one million signatures.

Bid To Bring FUTA For Unilateral Arbitration

By Indika Sri Aravinda, The Sunday LEADER

The government is holding internal discussions to bring striking academics for unilateral arbitration, Labour Minister Gamini Lokuge said.

He said that the Labour Ministry and the Government were vested with powers and responsibilities to intervene at a time when industrial action by unions were having adverse effects on the country.

“We are not giving up our attempts to find solutions simply because the FUTA walked out of meetings,” Lokuge said.

Labour Commissioner  Pearl Weerasinghe, says that initially FUTA took part in the meetings, but not now after announcement by the government of potential arbitration action.

“FUTA, the University Grants Commission and the Ministry of Higher Education took part in the initial meeting,” he said. In response, Dr Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri of the FUTA said that discussions were being held with Dr P. B. Jayasundera, Treasury Secreatary, and Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa.

“We don’t want to have meetings with the lower rungs of the government. This is a serious matter,” he said. “The worst the government can do is to terminate our services. If they do that, we will accept. Let’s see how they run the universities,” Dr Devasiri said.

Larger Questions and Peripheral Engagement: Trade Unionism at Jaffna University

September 15, 2012, 6:34 pm , Sunday Island

by Ahilan Kadirgamar

With the university teachers on strike for over two months, what has been most impressive about this struggle is its national character and independence from party politics. The public debate created by the breadth and commitment of this struggle provides great hope for rethinking our political culture and people’s participation in shaping post-war Sri Lanka. What began as a public debates on issues relating to universities and education are now resonating with larger political and economic questions. Yet each university is different and faces unique challenges based on the region and the communities it serves. In this context, what role has Jaffna University played in the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) strike action? And has the FUTA strike had an impact on Jaffna University as it recovers from decades of war and violence? What does the seemingly peripheral engagement of Jaffna University with FUTA tell us about the larger questions about our economy, democracy, trade union politics and post-war ethnic relations?

The University of Jaffna, soon after its formation in the 1970s, was a hotbed of political activism. While it was an important site for militant mobilisation, it also engendered debates on nationalism, Marxism and the political future of the Tamil community. As the war progressed, the University became the site of proxy conflicts of armed actors, undermining the openness of the university space. This was also the context in which the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) authored The Broken Palmyrah in the late-1980s, an exceptional work on the conflict, and a testament to efforts by university teachers to keep the university space open to dialogue and criticism even as rest of Jaffna society was eclipsed by militarisation. The escalating attacks on university teachers during the decades of war and the fear instilled by the LTTE and State-linked forces did not disappear with the end of the war. Rather, Jaffna and the University continue under the shadow of militarisation and a climate of fear. This fear, combined with the institutional deterioration of the University over the years, have also hindered trade union activism.

Political and Economic Questions

I would like to begin with an assessment of the university teachers struggle and its relevance for the country and Jaffna. The FUTA strike has created national-level recognition of the deep-seated crisis in education. FUTA has been able to win over public opinion by going beyond the salary demands of most trade unions. They have highlighted the worrying decline in state educational investment as well as the attacks on university autonomy through politicisation and militarisation. The call for 6% of GDP in state investment for education has become a slogan that broader sections of society are beginning to embrace. It has also become clear that the crisis in education cannot be resolved by the university teachers alone, but that it requires engagement by the broader citizenry who are affected by this crisis.

For me, this debate opens up four larger questions of political and economic importance. First, the 6% demand for state investment in education, raises significant questions about the Government’s approach to the economy, and how it might conflict with the people’s needs and vision of their economic future. It is only a particular kind of economy, one that privileges social welfare that can make such investments in education. If the Government is to agree to the 6% demand, it would have to eschew its neoliberal vision for the economy and possibly reject its plans to privatise education. In fact, the Government’s priorities of centralised infrastructure development would have to be redirected to education, health and social welfare.

Second, the FUTA struggle has also brought to the fore questions of politicisation and militarisation in the education sector. But these are larger questions about democracy and democratic political culture. In fact, even Kannangara and his Committee that drafted the recommendations for free education in the 1940s, were convinced that free education was essential for the newly emergent democracy. Free access to education, from basic literacy to engagement with critical ideas are essential to empower peoples participation in any democracy. So, the current debate on education needs to raise questions about democracy and challenge the Government’s reduction of democracy to elections. Rather, a democratic political culture would involve the people challenging the political elite, the politicisation of public institutions and the imposition of military discipline on society.

Third, as this article is being written, the Government is threatening forced arbitration, which in essence will be an attempt to crush the university teachers’ strike and a major attack on trade union rights. Indeed, after the General Strike of July 1980 was crushed by the Jayewardene Regime, the trade union movement in Sri Lanka has not fully recovered. While FUTA has been reenergising trade unionism, the defeat of this strike could become another major defeat for labour rights in the country. Furthermore, forced arbitration on such a national issue will be a worrying precedent for any future attempt to shape state policies through trade union agitation. Whether or not the Rajapaksa Regime actually moves on forced arbitration to attack this trade union strike, its consideration of this option itself is reflective of its neoliberal and authoritarian commitments.

Fourth, the public debate on state education is bound to have an impact on the minorities and particularly the war affected communities. Indeed, access to education has been an important political grievance of the Tamil, Muslim and Up-Country Tamil communities at different points in their history. Will the FUTA strike create greater democratic space by empowering the university space in places like Jaffna? How will a solution to the crisis in education affect the war-affected communities’ access to education and social welfare more broadly? Would the expansion and transformation of national institutions such as schools and universities significantly change the minorities’ relationship to those institutions? Would North-South solidarity, as with the university teachers struggle, create more space for the war-affected communities to air their grievances and help rebuild inter-ethnic relations?

Challenges in Jaffna

I posed these questions to a group of members of the Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association (JUSTA) recently. I was humbled by their responses. I doubt the FUTA leadership in the South and for that matter many of us who have been writing on the crisis in education are fully conscious of the situation in Jaffna. Yet, many of the insights about larger issues relating to the current crisis in education may lie in the periphery of the country.

The members of JUSTA I spoke to painted a dismal picture of Jaffna University, isolated from rest of Jaffna society, both by the security situation and decades of conflict. The prevailing apathy has crippled university teachers’ activism. The Jaffna-based newspapers were indifferent, if not ignorant, of the FUTA strike as they only peddled nationalist discourse, leading to university teachers being isolated from Jaffna society and the lower classes in particular. The university teachers are also confronted with longstanding concerns about the repeated disruption of the functioning of the schools and the University during the war, and the many years of schooling lost by youth in the Northern Province. Resorting to trade union action they worried means further delays for these youth. They claimed, a certain Jaffna exceptionalism is ideologically strong, that a community devastated by war should only think about moving on with minimal risks.

The brutal attacks on two university student leaders in recent months, and the lukewarm response to these incidents, has meant a reluctance to take the trade union struggle to the streets and seek the solidarity of school teachers on the scale it has happened in the South. The multiplicity of authorities controlling Jaffna including the military is a source of interference in the functioning of civil and public institutions. The result has been the stifling of the Jaffna University by an administration that has become more powerful by playing to the wishes of the powers that be against the academics. There is much dissension and cynicism in some sections of academics; they do not see the struggle succeeding or alternatively believe that even without their participation any salary increase won in the South will benefit them. With a conservative administrative order in place, academics involved in trade union mobilisation fear they will be labelled as "trouble-makers".

Yet, they told me of the positive changes that were also emerging with trade union activism. In the past, Faculty Board and Senate meetings were merely rubber stamps for decisions made by senior professors and the administration, but now their Faculty Board was vociferously debating issues, symptomatic of an emerging democratic culture within the Jaffna University. While only one or two individuals attended meetings in Colombo during the trade union action last year, this year, bus loads of lecturers went to the major FUTA protest rally. They are now making moves to bring the FUTA leadership from the South to discussions with academics in the North. These steps, they recognise, are possible because they are able to build on their trade union work last year to augment their efforts now. Their fear is that the Government, having realised the consequences of the expansion of the trade union struggle, may now seek to crush the strike in order to keep a new political culture from taking hold. Their commitment to trade unionism, in fact, is democratising Jaffna University.

In recent weeks, I have been visiting and engaging university teachers and universities in Colombo and Peradeniya. However, the university teachers I met in Jaffna humbled me as I saw the odds against which they were struggling to instil a trade union culture and contribute to the national struggle to save state education. It is in Jaffna, that the consequences of centralised development policies excluding the immediate needs of a war-affected community, whether it be of education or social welfare are most apparent. Such a predicament challenges the reduction of development to economic growth and raises questions about a meaningful economy. It is also in places like Jaffna, where the full implications of politicisation and militarisation of our national institutions as attacks on democracy, and the role education can play in revitalising and democratising society, are most evident. Would FUTA and all of us who support FUTA’s important struggle engage the periphery seriously and act on such concerns, even as the national struggle to save state education moves forward?

FUTA has been energised by a new generation of academics with a vibrant vision of education. And in Jaffna too, a small group from that generation, thirsty for broader national and international exposure, embracing of diversity and pluralism, willing to self-critically examine problems and take up the mantle of dissent is emerging. That is a glimmer of hope for universities, trade unionism and democratisation in the post-war era.