Visiting Sri Lanka on 10-12 April to assess the country’s progress in its respect of human rights, with a view to granting trade preferences under the EU’s generalised scheme of preferences (GSP+), two MEPs from the European Parliament’s GUE/NGL Group – Lola Sánchez Caldentey from Spain and Anne-Marie Mineur from the Netherlands – urged the Sri Lankan authorities to implement their commitments. "The European Union should not grant a special trade status to Sri Lanka if the money coming from the advantages of this status would remain only in the pockets of a few businessmen. We are willing to give preferences to Sri Lanka, but only if we are sure that the benefit will go to the workers, Sánchez Caldentey stated at the end of her investigation.
“If EU consumers knew the extremely abusive working conditions of the women who produce the clothes they buy from Sri Lanka, they would be ashamed”, she said.
Invited by local trade unions and the Clean Clothes campaign, Sánchez Caldentey and Mineur met workers who have been victims of labour rights violations, union members who have been victims of harassment or illegal dismissal, and victims of sexual harassment and of labour rights violations in the country’s free trade areas.
“In 2015, we received with satisfaction the commitment of the Sri Lankan government to put in place legislation to address human rights violations. However, the implementation of that legislation remains very questionable”, Mineur stated.
Sánchez Caldentey and Mineur also expressed their concern about the intensive use of temporary work agencies for cooperation arrangements, which have undermined freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. They also expressed concern at the fact that the judiciary has increasingly interfered in work conflicts to the detriment of trade unions.
"It is the government´s obligation to effectively guarantee the fundamental rights of workers and their trade unions. Collective bargaining and the right to strike should be an integral part of this. The government must ensure that these workers can organise themselves through trade unions, because otherwise exploitation will continue", Mineur underlined.
Following their investigation, Sánchez Caldentey and Mineur spoke to Sri Lanka’s Labour Minister John Seneviratne about their "serious" concerns regarding labour rights issues. Seneviratne committed to ensuring that at least 50% of the benefits of the GSP+ status are paid to Sri Lankan workers.
After their investigation, Sánchez Caldentey and Mineur concluded that they welcomed this commitment but that they still did not know how the government would deliver on this promise. “From our perspective, the first step to make sure that the benefits get to the workers is to make sure that they have the effective right to organise and bargain collectively. Signing a convention is just the beginning. The real challenge is to implement it; to ensure that the workers not only have the theoretical right to organise, but also that, in reality, there is no harassment towards trade unions by the employers”, they said.
The two MEPs also approved the Sri Lankan unions’ roadmap for assessing labour rights, which aims to ensure that the workers will benefit effectively from GSP+ status.
On Wednesday 11 January, the European Commission proposed granting trade preferences to Sri Lanka again under the EU’s GSP+, linked to the country's efforts on human rights, sustainable development and good governance. This proposal is now being examined by the European Parliament and Council with a view to a decision in May (see EUROPE 11701). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)