May day on 30th April

Vesak - the most prestige religious festival of the majority of Sri Lankans falls on 1st of May. So, the Government decided to advance May Day celebrations by a day, that the Vesak festivities could be celebrated on a grand scale. Hence, the working class of Sri Lanka celebrate 2007 May Day today.

Oops... when I say "working class" - I mean it is supposed to be the working class. But in the current context as everything else, May Day is hugely affected by politics. So called "working class" - in the form of trade unions being divided in to political parties. Division of working class is the prime objective of most of the political parties.

In Sri Lanka, the garment industry is the prime source to pump in foreign exchange. Thousands of people work there - majority are women. It’s no doubt they are the most exploited in the country. They work for a salary not more than Rs.6000 per month. Most of them are from rural areas, so they need to spend a fair amount of their earnings for "shelter" & food. In no means those places provide "shelter" for money are up to the standards. There are places where they force their employees to work 12-16 hours per day. There were many occasions where hundreds of garment employees being hospitalized due to food poisoning, which indicates the quality of the food they receive.

That is just a part of the story on the physical labor exploitation. The other side of the story is on intellect exploitation. That is more dangerous than the prior – you never know you’ve being exploited, but the truth is, you are.