{"id":138583,"date":"2023-11-26T17:43:19","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T00:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=138583"},"modified":"2023-11-26T17:43:19","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T00:43:19","slug":"unilever-the-new-old-screws-land-labour-acts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/11\/26\/unilever-the-new-old-screws-land-labour-acts\/","title":{"rendered":"Unilever & The New-Old Screws: Land & Labour\u00a0Acts"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 19-25 November 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018What are the problems of the farmers who currently own lease lands?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has stopped subsidies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has stopped fertilizer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government is not helping with water supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government is not buying their crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government is not supporting them to get loans<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from state banks, based on their income from production<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& ability to pay back interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can giving an ownership certificate address the above?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013\u00a0ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, The deal behind giving land ownership certificates to Sri Lanka\u2019s farmers.\u2019 \u2013 S Waduge<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scandal of the 19th<\/sup> century,<\/strong> beyond the English invasions & genocides, beyond the wilful English destruction of complex irrigation systems \u2013 which the English correctly recognized as forming the solidarity & solidity of the ancient village & its gamsabha \u2013 beyond all this, was the English fragmentation of land, especially the Temple Lands<\/strong>. So recalled SBD de Silva, whose unparalleled scholarship inspires this ee <\/em><\/strong>archive. These vast holdings, he observed, could have provided the basis for an even more-coordinated modern and efficient agriculture. Instead, fragmentation resulted in bestowing the country with the most impoverished peasantry in Asia in 1948, while aiding domination by one of the world\u2019s biggest multinational corporations (MNCs) \u2013 Unilever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The President magnanimously declares, \u20182 million farming families who lost their traditional lands during the English colonial era are due to get ownership<\/strong> of land & farmland\u2019 (ee Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>, <\/strong>Budget & home ownership). <\/strong>2 million families means almost half the country! Yet there\u2019s no real opposition to compute such arithmetic (Oh wait, everybody\u2019s playing cricket!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Then again, politics is algebra! The media happily misses how this Presidential newly spun \u2018generosity\u2019 is just the very old wine of the US MCC\u2019s plan to turn all our lands into real estate to be sold off<\/strong> once again to the highest colonial multinational bidders! (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, S Kulatunga)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Much of this titled land, without the economic supports described above by Shenali Waduge, will indeed fall into the hands of merchants & moneylenders and then into the pockets of MNCs. This took place in 19th<\/sup>C Eastern Province, where the English by enforcing compound interest through their courts, enabled Muslim merchants to acquire vast holdings through the use of 3rd<\/sup> parties at English land auctions. And, not just there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The lands in the highlands were stolen for the English coffee & tea plantations. How the Kandyan chieftains, who aided the English capture of the last citadel of the Sinhala, abused their high office to subsequently steal even more crown land is examined by Sena Thoradeniya in \u2018Kandyan Chieftains under the English\u2019 (ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 It\u2019s therefore apropos that ee <\/em><\/strong>concludes its look at the surreptitious in-plain-sight role of the English multinational Unilever, who has been the chief beneficiary of the robbery of Sri Lanka\u2019s lands and labour. ee <\/em>also <\/strong>suspects Unilever is behind Sri Lanka\u2019s largest corporations \u2013 JKH, Sunshine Holdings, Maharaja, George Steuart \u2013 etc. It is no coincidence that the CBSL Governing Board (GB) <\/strong>set up to control the Central Bank (CB) has been captured by such corporate stooges (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>). And as this ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> suggests, Unilever is indeed the grandmaster \u2018navigating\u2019 the new Employment Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Unilever has been eroding workers\u2019 wellbeing in Sri Lanka, controlling preparation, shipping & packaging<\/strong>, which has enabled commodity price manipulation <\/strong>in the tea business:This total control <\/strong>was \u2018temporarily disrupted\u2019<\/strong> in Sri Lanka when the plantations were nationalized in 1975 (resulting in increased zealotry to overthrow that UF government).<\/strong> Under pressure from international financial institutions, however, the plantations were privatized in 199<\/strong><\/em>2<\/strong>, and Unilever Ceylon led the way in promoting many of the subsequent erosions in worker welfar<\/strong>e!Unilever\u2019s \u2018colonial strategies of divide & conquer\u2019<\/strong> resulted in a massive strike against privatization in 1998, enabling gains for workers. Unilever Ceylon tried to avoid its own agreement <\/strong>in 2001, citing the India-SL Free Trade Agreement (1999) <\/strong>that reduced tariffs on tea. Unilever Ceylon<\/strong> tried to pit Indians against Sri Lankan workers<\/strong>, with its subsidiaries in each country blaming cheap imports from the other. Unilever Ceylon further threatened to end all tea production in Sri Lanka,<\/strong> citing union disruption, and asserted that it would simply bring in Indian tea to sell in Sri Lanka<\/strong>. Unions in both countries shared information about the Unilever subsidiaries. The company had lobbied strongly for the trade agreement<\/strong>, seeking India as a new market. Unilever Ceylon, with the connivance of Hindustan Lever, was hoping to expand the potential of its export labels essentially by buying the bulk of its tea from India and then re-exporting it as a blend with a little Sri Lankan tea<\/strong>, as the CEO acknowledged in 2003, noting the plan had been blocked by the Sri Lanka government under pressure from plantation unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> notes: \u2018Tamil plantation workers in Ceylon were organized in 1939 by Indian unionists as the Ceylon Indian Congress.\u2019 What it fails to discuss is the role played by the English colonialists & Indian bourgeoisie in banning the LSSP, whose base was among plantation workers, alienating them from the rest of the country\u2019s workers (ee<\/em><\/strong> 17 July 2021; Aug 2023 Pt 5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Which brings us to the other forces behind the new Employment Act:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018There were 12,000 registered lobbyists <\/strong>whispering in the ears<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of US members of Congress <\/strong>& federal agencies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to obtain the desires of their corporate masters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022 total federal lobbying expenditures reached $4.1billion<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Chamber of Commerce<\/strong> \u2013 which counts companies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like JPMorgan Chase, Alphabet (Google) & Chevron<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

among its members \u2013 spent $79.4million.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Finance<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This generous US Chamber of Commerce (AmCham)<\/strong>\u2019s Colombo toady this week had Shan Yahampath (who ee<\/em><\/strong> mistakenly called a Minister last week) \u2018conduct a symposium\u2019 (costing Rs6,500 a ticket). Yahampath was \u2018Decoding Sri Lanka\u2019s Proposed Labour Reforms\u2019 and its \u201934 pivotal amendments\u2019, for US corporate interests at the \u2018Goodies<\/strong> Board Room\u2019 of a Colombo speakeasy. Yahampath, accused of complicity in trafficking \u2018goodies\u2019, (see ee Comments<\/em><\/strong>), is not only an \u2018advisor to Minister on International Relations\u2019, but also \u2018private secretary\u2019 to the Minister of Labour & Foreign Employment. The US Chamber\u2019s invitation appropriately describes the event with such colonial Columbian tropes as \u2018navigate\u2019, \u2018explore\u2019 & \u2018discover\u2019\u2026 Goody goody for them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     We know well what transpired post-Columbus\u2026 for which the USA recently \u2018gave thanks\u2019 again for their mass murder & robbery of those Americas. Indeed, even as the world is supposed to forget and concoct what they are giving thanks for, Gaza tells us clearly what their Thanksgivings are all about!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the attack on Sri Lanka\u2019s economy escalates, women \u2013 who make up for more than 50% of migrant workers, providing the 2nd<\/sup>-highest contribution to the country\u2019s foreign exchange \u2013 women who faced the brunt of Covid as frontline health workers & factory workers (constituting the majority of over 1 million workers in Sri Lanka\u2019s apparel fraud) <\/strong>face even greater exploitation. ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues sharing the Communist Party of Sri Lanka\u2019s Alternate Program: this week examining how this economic downturn intensely affects women. Both the enforced impoverishment and the measures taken by the capitalists to demand more sacrifices from the working class, \u2018discrimination based on gender could re-surface\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 And while the US embassy and their stink-tanks & NGOs sing the praises of equality, it is women who also face labor-intensive exploitation in the fields & plantations, in homes as domestics, and in factories, where they are denied access to modern machinery that could develop new skills and ease their toil. ee<\/em><\/strong> therefore concludes its look at the world\u2019s most powerful tech company \u2013 ASML \u2013 that makes the machines that make the machines that make electronic chips<\/strong>, and how it was favored by Dutch industrial policy, the US war machine & EU subsidies. It is with a combination of mirth & melancholy to note how funny so-called (Western) Marxists & (a)Historical Materialists are, who ignore this culture of modern production, that aims to prevent our access to such modernity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unilever & The New-Old Screws: Land & Labour Acts<\/a><\/blockquote>