Union Strategies in the Sri Lankan Tea Plantations: Rediscovering the Movement Dimension

Janaka Biyanwila

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2003, vol. 14, issue 1, 64-79

Abstract: With the launch of export-oriented industrialisation policies in 1977, trade unions in Sri Lanka entered a new set of challenges. The state promotion of labour market deregulation and privatisation has directly undermined union strategies based on bureaucratic modes of organising worker solidarity. Nevertheless, among the gamut of union strategies are tendencies characterising what is described as social movement unionism (SMU). The SMU approach focuses on strategies of independent unions combining participatory democracy internally with structured alliances externally. This paper looks at the case of a union in the tea plantations and its potential towards developing a SMU strategic orientation. In particular, the discussion focuses on the deepening of democratic tendencies within the unions which may be capable of reinforcing the movement dimension of unions.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/103530460301400106 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:14:y:2003:i:1:p:64-79

DOI: 10.1177/103530460301400106

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Economic and Labour Relations Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().