national strike against new government taxes

President Ranil Wickremesinghe had tried to ban the demonstration by calling transport-related services essential. Some analysts believe it was a flop because many employees showed up for work out of fear of losing their jobs. The unions threaten to take action involving all sectors of the country.

Many university professors and a large number of government bank employees also joined the initiative to protest against the increase in electricity tariffs and income taxes, part of the measures necessary to obtain a bailout loan from the Fund. International Monetary. However, some analysts believe the strike was a failure because many employees showed up for work anyway.

On February 27, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, in an attempt to ban the announced strike, signed a memo declaring services related to ports, airports and passenger transport essential, including the provision and maintenance of facilities. For this reason, some public and semi-public employees showed up to work today with black clothes and ribbons.

Samantha Jayaratna, Gunapala Karunaratna and Udaya de Silva, representing the Colombo Port unions, stated that “the port of the capital launched a massive campaign starting at 7am today, involving 9,000 employees belonging to 40 unions, and the loading and unloading of goods on eight ships was interrupted”. They then ironized that “today the match is for one day, but if the Government does not withdraw the new tax measures, from the next few days it will be a test match.” It is estimated that the government lost billions of rupees in revenue due to the disruption of operations at the Colombo port.

Public sector banks posted strike notices and several businesses in the Colombo and Gampaha districts remained closed. Some public sector employees, Nadeesha Sandaruwani, Sampath Alagiyawanne and Ranjith Colonne, told that “today we are on sick leave by decision of our union leaders. The Government could clamp down on us, but how are we going to work today, when almost all the employees are on strike? We are already struggling to live on our meager salary What will we do if we lose our jobs?”

According to Ranjan Jayalal, coordinator of the union alliance, “there was no need to issue an emergency notification because the services designated as essential by the government were already essential before. As long as the government does not listen to us and try to stop the action of the unions, we will violate the law”.

Union sources from the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Ceylon Electricity Board added that “if something were to happen to fuel distribution and electricity supply, the government would have to take full responsibility.”

Jagath Wijegunawardana, union coordinator at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, announced that “employees will only service and operate power plants for one hour today and will go on a more severe strike next week if the government does not reverse its fiscal policy. We will carry carry out a broader general strike with the participation of all citizens. The whole country could come to a standstill.”

According to economic analysts, the strike did not work, as the impact was less than expected and schools in many areas are operating normally despite fewer students attending classes.