JVP playing by JR's rule book?

The JVP-led NPP government has a proclivity for locking horns with trade unions although it pledged to champion workers' rights during its Opposition days.

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It has antagonised state workers in several key sectors to the point of driving them to protest or even strike.

Workers have played a pivotal role in unsettling governments and bringing about regime changes in post-Independence Sri Lanka. They were an integral part of the so-called Pancha Maha Balavegaya (Five Great Forces)—the Sangha, physicians, teachers, farmers and workers—that enabled the rapid ascent of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike’s SLFP and its allies to power in 1956. Workers and their trade unions also led the 1953 hartal from the front and brought the then UNP government to its knees.

The JVP used workers and trade unions to achieve its political goals. It dominated the trade union sector, and was behind almost all workers’ struggles, which had an unsettling effect on successive governments. The JVP-led NPP would not have been able to win elections and savour power but for workers’ support. State employees voted for the NPP overwhelmingly, as evident from the sheer number of postal votes it polled in the last three elections.