The writer of this appeal for assistance, Anton Marcus, is a remarkable labor leader who led Sri Lankan unions and community organizations to successfully oppose his government's attempts to lower labor standards to satisfy demands made by the International Monetary Fund last year. This campaign is the subject of a case study that our Labor Center has just completed for the AFL-CIO.
We are all saddened by the terrible tragedy that the tsumani caused in South Asia and Southweast Asia. If you can contribute to the effort that Anton describes below, your funds will go augment the one-month's salary that Anton's union members are contributing, and will directly help Free Trade Zone workers.
For those of you who are in the Berkeley area, we will be collecting checks at the Labor Center to collectively send to this effort. Please see Lea Grundy in Room 312 at IIR.
ktq
Katie Quan
Chair
Center for Labor Research and Education
Institute of Industrial Relations
University of California
2521 Channing Way #5555
Berkeley, CA 94720-5555
(510) 643-7213 fax: (510) 642-6432
email: kquan at berkeley.edu <mailto:kquan at berkeley.edu>
web: http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu <http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/>
-----Original Message----- *From:* ftzunion at diamond.lanka.net [mailto:ftzunion at diamond.lanka.net] *Sent:* Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:28 PM *To:* tryan at solidaritycenter.org *Subject:* APPEAL: Helping hands to the victims of tidal waves
Dear Friends
*_Appeal to support the "Helping hands to the victims of tidal wave" programme
_*Thanks for your response to our e-mail dated 29 December 2004. As mentioned in our earlier e-mail, we were able to collect some information how the tsunami tragedy has affected our members specifically workers in the FTZs.
Two of our members namely; comrade Karunakaran from Kalkuda and comrade Ramanathan from Kaluvanchikudi who were working at the National Paper Mill in Valachchani, Eastern Province have died. Some workers in this factory have not yet reported for work and 3 or 4 members have lost their children and all those families who have been affected and have lost their houses are still in various refugee camps.
One of our members in Bratex Ltd. at the FTZ-Katunayake, has lost her sister. Our branch union treasurer's relations of 8 families have lost their belongings including their houses.
One of our members of Jaqaklanka factory has lost her house and another worker who is not a member of our union also has lost his house. At the Katunayake FTZ, a considerable number of workers have not yet reported for work and the Board of Investment (BOI) and the management of the factories are trying to trace them.
Even though the factories in the Koggala FTZ, in southern Sri Lanka were not directly affected, quite a number of workers have still not reported for work therefore, the factories are not starting operations. For example in the factory called Fashion Trends out of 700 employees only 200 were reported for work today.One women worker works at Fashion Trend has died. Workers who have come to report for work are facing difficulties at their boarding houses where they stay. The owners have told them they were not in a position to keep them because they can not provide food.
Official figures indicate the number of people who have died has reached more than 39,196, but unofficially the figure could reach more than 40,000. Of the people who have died, more than 40% are children.About 81,000 houses have been destroyed and more 1 million people are staying in refugee camps.
We are also extremely sad to inform you of the news Mrs. Kanthy Amitt, the Chief Interpreter of the Parliament, died with husband and two daughters while travelling on 26th December 2004. Kanthy is known to some of you because she was a interpreter for our delegation to the SIGTUR conference held in Soul Korea and she was the interpreter for the Committee for Asian Women's 25th anniversary held in Thailand.
According to above informations it is clear there will be a considerable number of workers and their families among the victims of this tragedy.Therefore, our union together with Women's Centre which is a labour NGO working with women workers in FTZs and garment factories, decided to launch a programme to provide a helping hand to workers who are victims of the tidal waves who are working at the FTZs factories and garment factories outside the FTZs.
As you all know this disaster is a terrible blow for garment workers who are under threat of losing their employment because of the MFA Phase-out from the beginning of this year.
As we mentioned above our target groups will be workers of who are working in the factories in FTZs and garment factories situated out side the FTZs.Since immediate relief has been extended by the international community and other organizations including the government, we decided to give a hand to the workers and their families for long term rehabilitation by building houses for them. In the initial stage we plan to build 50 houses starting with two houses for the workers who died at Valachchani, Eastern Province.
We consulted with experts on building houses for this particular situation.According to their information one house consisting of two rooms, kitchen, toilet, and veranda will cost S.L Rs140,000/ - (USD$1346). We have attached a budget for the initial 50 houses.
We have printed and distributed 20,000 leaflets among workers to collect information about their circumstances since the tidal waves engulfed the coast (translation of the leaflet is attached).Already we released this communication to all newspapers and electronic media. We have already planned to visit to Eastern Province and Southern provinces, which were affected by the disaster, at the end of this week.
Our union decided to ask every member to contribute one day’s salary for the month of January 2005 and we will have a discussion to find out the possibility of continuing this support.
We have opened a new bank account under the name ofFree Trade Zones & General Services Employees UnionAccount to assist victims of the tidal waves, at the Bank of Ceylon.
*Name of the account: *FTZ&GSEU to assist the victims of the tidal waves *Account No: 0-3912-7 Name of Bank:* Bank of Ceylon, Lakehouse branch *Address:* Lakehouse Building, Colombo 10
We hope you will support by contributing to the fund set up by us to give helping hands to theworkers who victims of tidal waves. Even if your contributionis small it will be of great assistant to the success our programme.If you need further clarification please contact us.
We are awaiting your immediate response.
Yours In Solidarity
Anton Marcus Joint Secretary Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union Tel: +94 (0)11 4 617 711; +94 (0)11 4 610 001 Mobile: +94 (0)777 281 477 Email: _ftzunion at diamond.lanka.net
_Sriya Ahangamage Secretary Women's Centre Tel: +94 (0)11 2231152; +94 (0)11 4 831 649