You could say this was the week that Bala Tampoe and his Mercantile Union boys stormed parliament. It was among other things that happened this week. But the fact that Bala Tampoe brought his Union boys to parliament, staged a massive show of strength, got the Prime Minister to convene a party leaders meeting, and finally got amendments into three pieces of legislation on labour introduced by the government all underlined the fact that this was the week the unionist refused to say die.

'Does Bala Tampoe have a split personality?' one could have been excused for wondering aloud last week. Several months go, not many weeks after the government had signed the ceasefire agreement with the Tamil Tigers, this writer was present at a union meeting which was convened to educate the union bosses about the ceasefire process. The meeting was sponsored by the ILO.

Tampoe launched a tirade against the left and the left leaning parties in the political divide, for passing up the opportunity to make peace with the Tigers, and he ended up with the most resounding endorsement for the UNF government that I have seen for a long time. "If the UNF seized the opportunity to make peace with the Tigers where the progressives missed it, then we should applaud the UNF and support them' he said. He urged all unionists present to support the ceasefire steadfastly, and all those present did with two abstentions. (The JVP unions were not present.)

So for such a staunch campaigner for the UNF to go to parliament and force concessions on three labour related bills would have been quite an effort. But those such as Tampoe, and good old leftist for all seasons Wickremabahu Karunaratne, have been having a split personality about the UNF ever since the ceasefire began. Wickremabahu supported the ceasefire and the peace process almost more vehemently than Bala Tampoe at a recent meeting organised by a Colombo NGO.

But then he proceeded to demolish the UNF on its economic adventures, and said that there is a sinister conspiracy to destroy the working classes. This probably confused the audience and when somebody asked him 'are you against the UNF or are you for the UNF in its efforts to make peace with the LTTE', Wickremabahu said "We are of course with the UNF, there is no doubt about that.''

Perhaps this is why even Bala Tampoe has no alternative but to be satisfied with the new labour bills, even though it was clear that he had come to the parliament building with his phalanx of supporters to demolish the bills even before they were unveiled.

But last week was also the one in which the UNF got a wake up call. The UNF got the message that peace and peace only is not governance, and on all fronts, the reports that the UNF is being insensitive to the plight of the people continued to disturb the UNF power elite and the party leadership.

On one front there was criticism that the UNF hierarchy was insensitive to the fact that the price of flour (and bread by extension) and gas was all going up. On the other hand, the Labour Bills which gave the Labour Commissioner for instance the right to sack a worker if he was satisfied that there is a dispute that was not resolvable between workers and management, were seen as a disastrous blow to the country's working classes.

The situation was clearly becoming unmanageable, and the opposition was poised to kill the Bills at the vote in parliament with the support of the CWC and Minister Chandrasekeran who were elements within the UNF itself who were against the Bills.
Eventually Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe decided that the matter deserved his personal up-close intervention,. He saw Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe as being too closely wedded to the cause of these Bills, therefore, he yanked Lands Minister Rajitha Senaratne from some of his work in other areas, to personally intervene with the opposition in a bid to try and neutralise some of the gathering opposition forces against the Bills.

Rajitha arrived, and his conclusion was that the Bills had to incorporate some of the amendments that were being proposed by the opposition, if they were to see the light of day. The long and the short of it all was that the Bills were eventually passed, with the opposition amendments duly included, and with Thondaman and other renegades finally voting with the UNF.

From wedding to cohabitation

Last week this newspaper had something good to say about cohabitation at least in one inside column and this week, cohabitation seemed to have climbed a notch -- both in terms of substance and appearance.

There were the nuptials where Ossie Abeygoonesekara the old late departed friend of Vijaya Kumaratunga who later joined the UNP, would have been proud looking down from his celestial lodgings, to see his son marry another political scion, the daughter of Felix Perera, PA Member of Parliament. In the now familiar manner for political weddings, indeed weddings of any sort leave alone political weddings, the attesting witnesses were Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe.

One witness was late for both auspicious times arranged by the bride's father for the registration ceremony, and The Sunday Times will make a special award for anyone who guesses correct the witness out of the two, who missed both auspicious times, but finally turned up for the signing ceremony nevertheless. All is well that ends well, and a wedding is a proper place to begin cohabitation - what better place is there?

By the end of the week, the President had agreed that she will meet with subject Ministers of the UNF Cabinet on a weekly basis to discuss 'relevant issues' and she had also agreed to a weekly meeting with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

This was also one week in which the schoolmarm in the President emerged, and she actually shouted at what turned out to be one of her own MPs who were creating a commotion of sorts, conducting a parallel conversation while she was presiding at the Members of Parliament meeting. The schoolmarm who often missed the school bell lost her cool and went for disciple and she asked Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and his colleagues to quiet down, and behave themselves, and get out if they can't behave. Even if you don't come to school before the bell goes, teacher is teacher eh boys?

Statistics and bread

Can consumer frustration be offset by the fact that even though bread and gas prices are skyrocketing, there is still a 4 point decrease in inflation and a 31 per cent percentage hike in volume of trading in the share market?

The big economic picture is good despite small irritants such as gas prices and bread prices, or this is what the UNF economic pundits seem to be saying.

The people didn't seem to be buying that line of argument however, and the government was making various other attempts at assuaging consumer anger, such as making Consumer Protection Bill into law. The people were not just suffering high prices, they were also suffering the tragi-comedy of politicians making excuses for them, and trying lamely to empathise with the peoples frustration -- politicians themselves being insulated from these price hikes. There was the spectacle of bread being thrown about in a food fight in the parliament chamber, and even the MP who had promised a black band campaign to protest against rising prices and the oppressive Labour Bill botched it all. The black bands never appeared; the wires got crossed, and the MPs who promsied to bring the bands never brought them to parliament.

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