The first strike in direct deflance of Ceylon's Exsential Services Order be gan August 31, when operators at the Sapugaskande oil refinery walked our, completely shutting down the plant.
strike legislation.
whose leadership supports the government conlition, resigned from their unions and requested membership in the Ceyion Mercantile Union (CMU), which has opposed the State of Emergency as well as the witch-nunt unleashed by the Bandaranaike regime in April.
The workers took this step in order to avoid being used as strikebreakers by their old leaderships.
With the refinery out of operation, Ceylonese press reports indicated that Prime Minister Sizimavo Bandaranaike bad requested strikebreaking as. sistance from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Four Egyptian technicians Laveled to Ceylon to investigute the situation, with the aur of determinin whether Egypt could provide a suf ficient number of scabs to get the fac tory running again.
On September 10 Bala Tampoe general secretary of the CMU, sent : etter to T. B. Subasinghe, minister ol industries and scientific affairs, proteating both the firing of Thuchevam and the regime's pians to break the strike. That letter, a copy of which was also sent to the president of le Arab Petroleum Workers Federation in Cairo, said lo part:
*The Executive Committee of nur Union considers that the strike should be settled immediately by negotiation with the Operations Staff Union, and that any effort to break the strike, by Importing refined oil, or by seeking to utilise the services of operators from abroad to work an blacklegs at the refinery, would be completely ubjustified and would be directly adverse to the interests of the working class and to the rest of our people, who will have to pay for the costs of such strike-breaking efforts."