-By Sunil Gamini Jayalathge
(Lanka-e-News -28.Aug.2025, 11.15 PM) The strike by Sri Lanka’s postal and telecommunications officers, which began on 17 August at 4 p.m. and concluded on the night of 25 August after a meeting with the Minister, has already entered the annals of industrial disputes as one of the most disruptive yet least rewarding in recent memory.
At its height, the strike paralysed services across the island: 18,000 workers downed tools, halting operations in 653 post offices and 70 administrative offices. By the time work resumed, a backlog of over 1.5 million letters and countless parcels had piled up, leaving the public in considerable distress.
The unions had rallied around 19 grievances, ranging from the demand for overtime allowances to opposition against biometric fingerprint machines used to log staff attendance. Their refusal to return to work, even after repeated appeals from the Postmaster General and the Minister, sharpened the confrontation.
But when the dust settled, the unions had won little. The strike was called off without securing any of their central demands.
The Minister responsible stood firm throughout. He declared bluntly that the government would never grant overtime payments as demanded, nor abandon the use of fingerprint machines for attendance.
Seventeen other requests, he insisted, were already being addressed administratively. But on those two key points—the issues that had triggered the walkout—the government would not bend.
Indeed, the state went further: it announced plans to withhold salaries from those absent from duty and to treat continued absence as a resignation from public service.
This uncompromising line broke the strike’s momentum. After a week of defiance, and a few theatrical protests—workers unfurling their bed sheets in public or staging sit-ins—the unions had little to show for their efforts.
In practical terms, this was a failed strike. None of the unions’ core aims were achieved. But why?
Several reasons stand out:
Poor prioritisation of demands.
By lumping relatively minor issues—such as opposition to fingerprint machines—together with more pressing grievances, the unions blunted their own case. To the public and government alike, these appeared trivial, even petty, and overshadowed their legitimate complaints.
Public sympathy evaporated.
Postal strikes inevitably inconvenience ordinary citizens. As letters, bills, and parcels piled up undelivered for more than a week, sympathy turned to anger. What little public support the strikers had initially evaporated, and in its place grew social hostility.
Flawed tactics.
The unions launched a nationwide strike without first exhausting lighter, symbolic measures—such as working to rule, limited protest actions, or coordinated media engagement. Instead, they leapt straight to an island-wide shutdown, a strategy that smacked of overconfidence.
Lack of solidarity.
Other unions did not rally to their side. The strike remained isolated within the postal service, never becoming the broader industrial movement that might have given it weight.
Misreading the political climate.
The greatest error, however, was strategic. Union leaders failed to grasp the prevailing political and social realities. The present government is not easily shaken. Unlike previous administrations, it has established credibility by cutting perks, demonstrating austerity, and maintaining public trust.
No amount of brinkmanship, no parliamentary intrigue, would topple it. At best, the opposition might dream of change in four years’ time.
To call a strike in such an environment, without public support and with weak demands, was bound to end in defeat.
The fate of this strike holds lessons beyond the postal service. Any future industrial action—in any sector—must reckon first with the political and social context of the time.
If unions misjudge the mood of the public, or underestimate the resilience of the government, then their battles are doomed to failure.
For the opposition, the strike may have offered a tempting stage from which to embarrass the ruling coalition. But trade union action cannot succeed if reduced to partisan politics. It must be rooted in real workplace grievances, prosecuted with careful planning, and sustained by genuine popular support.
The postal strike of August 2025 offers instead a cautionary tale: of demands poorly framed, tactics badly chosen, and a movement fatally divorced from the public it sought to champion.
The unions went out to win concessions. They returned with nothing.
-By Sunil Gamini Jayalathge
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by (2025-08-28 18:22:33)
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