ponnambalam arunachalam, 1916
No apology is required for having started a labour Federation in the planting districts... After a century of suffering the labourer has come to realize that self-help alone can save him... He has found from sad experience that none can help him in the way in which he wishes to be helped.
K.Natesa Aiyar, 1931
Capitalist forms of production had first made inroads into Ceylon in the plantations, but the relationship between worker and employer on plantations retained nonetheless certain feudal features. This was the basic reason for the lack of political or trade-union organizations among plantation workers until 1931.The process of unionization on the plantations developed in isolation from the very active urban movement.The leaders of urban labor were aware of the grievances of the vast mass of unorganized workers on the tea and rubber plantations, but they made no attempt to introduce trade unionism on the plantation or to link the urban and plantation workers in joint action.Although the estate labor force had become more rooted in Ceylon by the late 1920"s, urban politicians and labor leaders regarded the Indian workers as transient aliens with no permanent interest in Ceylon. moreover,when strikes and serious labor trouble occurred in Colombo, the planters, who were alert to the possibility of labor agitation spreading to the plantations, took great care to isolate their workers from the urban labor movement for example, during the 1923 general strike in Colombo, the planters prevented their workers coming to the city for fear that they might become "infected with the strikers" attitude of mind."
SOURCE : THE RISE OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN CEYLON
DR.V.KUMARI JAYAWARDENA
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