Another May Day was drawing to a close, and the moon was waxing at the time of writing. A rare overlap of the International Labour Day and Poya, this year, left the public confused, with the second Poya in the current month being officially declared Vesak. Opinion is however divided on the issue. It is being argued in some quarters that Vesak fell yesterday. The ongoing debate on this issue is not likely to fizzle out.

On watching various political circuses that passed for the International Labour Day events yesterday, one might have recalled the closing line of an epigram that mocks the writers who display technical control but not substance or vitality: “They use the snaffle and the curb all right/But where’s the bloody horse?” As for this year’s main International Labour Day events in Sri Lanka, one might have asked oneself: “Where’s the bloody worker?”

Yesterday’s May Day events were full of theatrics, and the worker as well as his cause was only an excuse for politicians to bellow rhetoric and score political points. Their May Day rally themes and sloganeering effectively gave away their political game.

The SJB’s May Day rally, held under the theme, Pacha Madiwata Horu (“Lies and Theft”), in Colombo, was a frontal propaganda attack on the government. It had little or nothing to do with workers’ cause. Lies and theft are bound to continue under future governments as well in this country, and propaganda attacks alone will not serve any purpose for workers. The SJB is an offshoot of the UNP, which crushed workers’ struggle in a brutal manner. In 1980, a powerful UNP government unflinchingly sacked tens of thousands of strikers overnight. The suppression of labour rights is part of the SJB’s political legacy. The SJB invited the UNP to join its May Day rally yesterday, as part of a plan to form a common electoral front, but the latter opted to take part in religious activities instead.

The JVP-led NPP’s main May Day rally was held in Nuwara Eliya yesterday under the theme, People’s Power for A People’s Government. The people, especially workers, enabled the incumbent government to secure a two-thirds majority in Parliament, expecting it to eliminate corruption and waste, develop the country and improve their lot. But the JVP/NPP leaders are riding roughshod over trade unions and even issuing veiled threats to resort to mass sackings to crush strikes. They have apparently borrowed a leaf out of the LSSP’s book in suppressing trade union struggles. One may recall that the LSSP, which emerged powerful with the help of trade unions, broke a bank employees’ strike in 1972 under the SLFP-led United Front government.

The NPP government has read protesting doctors the riot act. It chose to wear down the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) during a recent trade union battle. Time was when the JVP leaders shouted slogans, such as Death to imperialism––Liberation to the People and Death to Capitalism––Victory to Socialism. The JVP’s 36-page Revolutionary Policy Declaration with its founder Rohana Wijeweera’s imprimatur is full of promises to safeguard workers’ interests; it carries a quotation from The Communist Manifesto on its back cover. But today, the JVP-led NPP has prioritised the interests of the rich and the corporate sector over those of the ordinary people and workers. Some big-time rice millers are importing Rolls-Royces and helicopters while paddy farmers are pawning their valuables, unable to recover production costs due to exploitation at the hands of the millers’ Mafia and the soaring prices of agricultural inputs. The government has allowed the millers to fleece rice consumers as well.

The promised biannual salary revisions have become pie in the sky for state employees, and their private sector counterparts’ predicament is even worse. The NPP government did not care two hoots about workers’ views and protests, when it dismembered the Ceylon Electricity Board. What the JVP/NPP has done to trade unions, after being ensconced in power, is a textbook example of kicking the ladder.

Workers’ woes remain unaddressed, but the May Day political circuses go on, with politicians shedding copious tears for the working class.