15 pledge of solidarity from the United Federation of Labour and Government Workers Federation (led by the Nava Sama Samaja Party, Sri Lankan section of the Fourth International), which saw developments at the port as signifying a major development in the fight against the government's privatization plans, and as a big step forward towards bringing workers together in a single, united trade union body. They pledged their support for any future stepping up of industrial action.
Faced with the determination of the port workers, the SLA returned with another offer on September 15 granting payment of a special port allowance linked to the cost of living index along with a payment of arrears owed since the 1988 freeze, to be spread out over the next year.
By the end of the work-to-rule campaign, the CMU had nearly doubled its membership to 6,000. It gained the new adherents through its role in the recent action, seen as a fruit of its class struggle policy, its political independence and democratic functioning.
General strikes of CMU membership
Earlier in the year, the CMU attracted workers across the country into its fold through the two separate one-day general strikes of its members for the repeal of all "Emergency" regulations suppressing or restricting trade union, democratic and human rights.
The work-to-rule campaign was the first major workers action at the port since December 1969. The sixty-day strike in 1969-1970 — joined by workers at the Trincomalee port in the northeast of the country — came to a victorious conclusion ten days after the CMU called out its entire national membership in a sympathy general strike.
With this recent victory, the port workers may well have gotten the wind back in their sails. *