Colombo, Feb 24: A powerful Sri Lankan trade union is fighting to block economic reforms the government hopes will attract foreign aid as a "peace dividend" if it succeeds in ending the island's 19-year ethnic war.
"We have kept the labour reforms in check," said S. Amarasinghe, secretary of the 80,000-member Inter-Company Employees Union which is backed by a Marxist party in parliament.


He was referring to measures to free up the labour market and privatise state firms the union fears could lead to job cuts and diminish union influence.

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"If the government brings them out, we will begin our agitation again," he said in a telephone interview. Strikes on the issue have already thrown a spanner into the island's economic machinery.

"What the government is doing, by changing laws like this, can impede the peace process," he said. One year on, a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire in the civil war between the majority Sinhalese and the militant Tamil Tigers is holding and talks to resolve the conflict are under way. Bureau Report