Comrades,
We, the employees of the Michelin Tyre Factory in Midigama in southern Sri Lanka, are appealing for your solidarity and support in our struggle to defend our jobs and working conditions. About 1,500 workers are employed in our factory but we face an uncertain situation.
We only recently learnt that our factory was sold to India’s CEAT company. This deal between the Michelin and CEAT corporations was made without our knowledge. Michelin’s Midigama factory is due to be handed over to CEAT very soon.
There is great uncertainty about what will happen to our jobs, wages, allowances and working conditions under the CEAT company. We are members of the Inter Company Employees Union (ICEU), but it did not consult us and has agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the two companies without our knowledge.
The trade union leadership did not inform us about this MOU. In fact, we only found out about it when our delegation met with the Commissioner of Labour in Colombo on May 26.
The ICEU says that our jobs, wages and service conditions will be maintained by CEAT company, but we have no faith in statements from the trade union leaders who made this secret agreement with the companies. The union has not told us what is in the MOU or provided us with a copy. A promised 200,000-rupee (580 euros) compensation is insufficient.
The ICEU is not prepared to do anything on behalf of our rights and so we have started an independent struggle to defend our rights. As part of this fight, we protested outside the factory on May 24.
We have forwarded you the following demands and ask you to give us your support:
1. All the rights enjoyed by workers in Michelin should be maintained by CEAT.
2. If the factory is handed over to CEAT, each worker must be paid 3 million rupees (8,875 euros).
3. If not, we say that the workers should have the opportunity to end their services with Michelin according to the company’s voluntary retrenchment terms.
We presented these demands to the ICEU, but they vehemently rejected them and want us to accept their program of selling us for a pittance of 200,000 rupees (585 euros).
The Michelin website says the company will make structural changes. It also states that last year’s profit was 3.4 billion euros. Our demand is only 0.39 percent of last year’s profits made by the company. We know that you understand the reasonable nature of our demand.
To try to suppress our independent campaign, Michelin’s management in Sri Lanka has summarily sacked three of our worker comrades— Sampath Karunasena, Chirangivi Senevirathne and Priyanga Dimuthu Kumara—without any inquiry.
We have therefore added another demand:
4. Immediately reinstate the three sacked Michelin workers.
We have decided to take the path of class struggle over all these demands and call on you to extend your support as our brother and sister Michelin workers.
We have no faith in the union, which has nakedly betrayed us, and so we have formed an independent Action Committee to take the struggle into our own hands. We urge you to form similar committees in your factories, independently of trade union bureaucracies, in order to advance the struggle for your rights.
As we now have learnt, Michelin has closed several factories in Europe beginning in 2017, and fired thousands of workers. We all now face similar attacks on our jobs and basic rights under the company’s restructuring drive for higher profits. That is why it is necessity to develop a joint struggle to defeat these attacks.
We declare our full support for all the struggles conducted by other Michelin workers in Europe, and internationally, and hope to take forward our struggle collaboratively and in solidarity.
Thank you,
Michelin employees, Midigama