Letter from a Sri Lankan to an Indian cricket fan

by Abhishek Mukherjee in The Cricket Country

Dear Indian fan:

It had hurt us three years back when we saw those videos from Marine Drive and Connaught Place and Park Street from three years back. We, however, did not vow revenge or anything like that (if the team had, they had not let us know). If you had seen our players tonight, they were never arrogant in their celebrations.

The team did not have time to plot revenge: there was a time in 2011 when they did not get paid for eight months(yes, they had come runners-up in the World Cup despite that). They were offered proper contracts only in July 2012. The next year Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) had removed the stipulated players’ share from the International Cricket Council (ICC) events (25%), and it was only after Sanath Jayasuriya had stepped in that the players had agreed. They were not given the profit: they were only promised they would be given the same.

  

Can you imagine your men playing under such circumstances? No, I guess.

It did not end there. Jayasuriya did keep his word; when the players demanded 20% of the profit, he had put their proposal forward to SLC. When SLC had announced the fresh set of contracts, the ICC events share was not a part of it.

Take a moment to realise this. Put your men in their shoes. The men have been representing their country in the most high-profile event (and have been turning them into successes; they may not have been winning, but they have not exactly failed either), only to be told by SLC that they would not get a part of the profit from that tournament.

This reminded me of international cricket in the pre-Kerry Packer days when players were often told that if they did not want to play for the side there were plenty who would. Your own CK Nayudu, your first Test captain, had done the same to Vinoo Mankad, you may remember.

Anyway, four days before the tournament, SLC raised the topic to the Executive Committee. The players were announced incentives, but there were no ICC events shares announced for them. When the players insisted on the shares, SLC issued a threat that they would send a second-string side to the tournament. This happened on the day the players left for Bangladesh. Our heroes had left for the tournament without contracts.

You see why we don’t stone their houses the way you did Yuvraj Singh’s today? The reason is simple: they have been stabbed by their own board; we are the only ones backing them. With no assured contract, almost no Indian Premier League (IPL) contract against their names, with our own version of the IPL getting cancelled, the pride and fans are all they have while taking on the best of the world in a country away from home.

That is precisely why we never back out when it comes to supporting them: they have lost one final after the other, but we have never lost hope. Can you believe what you would have done to your men if they had lost four world tournament finals in five years? We had not gone after our players’ blood: instead, we had joked that it was our President’s turning up at the venue midway that had tilted the match West Indies’ way in the 2012 World T20 final.

Do you know something? We have grown up in conditions you have seen in newsreels and have read in newspapers, but have never really (I really hope you do not) had real-life brushes. We have grown up in a country where many of us were not sure of our safe return when we left home in the morning.

“Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse,” Keith Miller had said once. He had seen death from close quarters. So had we. Which is why defeats do not mean the end of the world for us. In those dark days of internal turmoil,Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva had kept Sri Lankan cricket alive. The 1996 World Cup had a role more significant in our history than you can imagine.

We fell from that zenith, and rose again; and fell again; in Muttiah Muralitharan we found our greatest cricket hero, in Jayasuriya a murderous marauder, in Lasith Malinga a rebellious freak; and then, in the two men who have quit this version of the sport today, the two icons we were left with.

They have given us a lot, and have got hardly anything back in return. The best we could do for them was to turn up in huge numbers and turn the band on, day in and day out. If they won, we were happy; if they did not, we had to accept it. It was like that in the 1980s. It has been like that in the 2010s as well. Three decades ago we used to lose in the league stages; now we lose the finals.

The fact remained that we had not won anything of note barring the 1996 World Cup. Eighteen years have elapsed since that. This win was long due. They have never given up hope in between: they tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, till they succeeded.

It has been our story all along.

It has been the story of the average Sri Lankan.

It has been the story of the Sri Lankan cricketer.

We may not have the best support, but we dream; and we do not give up when our dreams meet a dead end. We have a team where every man is a Robert the Bruce with no spider to show them the way.

We have not forgotten you, though. You [and Pakistan] had visited us before the 1996 World Cup when Australia and West Indies had refused to. We still owe you that.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful [and of late, rather peaceful] place. Come over for a trip some day. We will discuss all kinds of ICC event finals and have a laugh at how we manage to show up in them every now and then. Till then,

A Sri Lankan fan.

It's not zero-hours contracts that are the problem, it's the bosses who abuse them

As someone who has worked a zero-hours contract, I welcome Vince Cable's consultation – and his intention to crack down on exploitation

• 
• • Ruth Hardy
  • theguardian.com, Thursday 19 December 2013 18.32 GMT

Vince Cable intends to crack down on 'exclusivity clauses [in zero-hours contracts], meaning their workers are guaranteed no hours, but are prohibited from finding work with anyone else'. Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Vince Cable today launched a consultation on zero-hours contracts, saying he wanted greater fairness, but would not be calling for a complete ban. Having worked a zero-hours contract for just under a year, I think he's right. For many, a flexible contract where you are not obliged to work fits in well with the demands of studying or another job. The problem is not with the contracts themselves, but with the way that employers are abusing them.

It is estimated that about 1 million Britons are on these contracts, and in recent years they have become much more widespread. For those who have a steady source of income that covers rent, food and other essentials, but occasionally need to top it up with extra work (such as students in the summer holidays, or those who have retired), zero-hours contracts can be a good fit for both employer and employee.

The problems arise when companies use zero-hours contracts for nearly all their staff, as a way to cut their own costs and limit the rights that their workers have. The distinction between "worker" and "employee" is a complicated one, but those on zero-hours contracts are usually defined as workers, meaning they have fewer rights than employees. Employees are entitled to statutory redundancy pay and the right not to be unfairly dismissed. Not all workers, however, are.

If you want a job with guaranteed hours, to be forced on to a zero-hours contract denies you the psychological security that comes with knowing how much you will earn in a given month. Insecure employment means that you are constantly worrying about money and making ends meet: you can have plenty of hours one week, and none the next. There is no safety net of a minimum number of hours. There is nothing to stop you from earning nothing.

And some companies have even been using exclusivity clauses, meaning their workers are guaranteed no hours, but are prohibited from finding work with anyone else. Vince Cable has announced that he intends to crack down on these, but it is an indication of how exploitative the current labour market is that they have so far been allowed.

Zero-hours contracts enable companies to transfer the burden of an uncertain economy on to those that they employ. They are assured of a pool of workers from whom they can draw in busy times and ignore in quieter times. At the staffing agency I worked for, we were told that some shifts were "non-cancellation", meaning that cancelling the shift (even from ill health or an emergency) would incur a fine of £10. Yet the company was not restrained by its own rules: once I took a day off my internship to make a non-cancellation shift, as I needed the hours. The day before, I was told numbers had been reduced so I would no longer be needed after all. This short-term cutting of shifts happened often, sometimes just hours before you were meant to start.

A culture in which employers are allowed to treat their workers as disposable cogs in a commercial machine is exploitative, and there needs to be more regulation to ensure that those who want a stable, set-hours contract are entitled to one, while those who need to work flexibly can continue to do so. The needs of businesses should not take precedence over the rights of those that work for them – even in an economic situation that seems to have lapped up most of our principles with it.

This hajj, Muslims need to ask questions about exploitation

G4S's work in Saudi Arabia has sparked controversy. But where is the outcry over human rights as a new Mecca rises to service pilgrims?

• 
• • Riazat Butt
  • theguardian.com, Friday 27 September 2013 15.15 BST

Cranes and skyscrapers tower over Hajjis in Mecca. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

News that the Saudi government has engaged the services of security firm G4S for this year's hajj is angering campaigners, who accuse the company of profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

G4S has not revealed details about the nature or the scale of its involvement during hajj although a 2011 publication mentions a contract with Jeddah Metro to assist with security during that year's pilgrimage.

In light of the accusations about its activities in Israel, the company told a website that although it operates there, the structure and management of its work in Saudi Arabia is entirely different. A G4S spokesman also told Middle East Monitor: "Whilst we don't provide security directly for the pilgrims, we do provide security support for clients in Saudi that will require additional support during the hajj period."

Regardless of the nature or scale of the security firm's involvement in the pilgrimage, the combination of sacred sites and occupied territories is an inflammatory one and one NGO is already calling on the Saudi ambassador to the UK for the government to immediately end its contracts with G4S.

But if Muslims feel aggrieved about human rights abuses and hajj, then perhaps they ought to take a look at what is happening under the shadow of the heavy machinery surrounding Mecca, for the skyscrapers and shopping malls of Islam's holiest city are not being built by pixies.

This week, the Guardian highlighted the abuse and exploitation of migrant workers who are preparing Qatar for the World Cup in 2022. Similar scrutiny should also be applied to the projects under way in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, although these have traditionally tended to excite more indignation over the demolition of buildings with historic and religious significance than the erosion of rights of the workers razing mountains. It is a good thing there is more awareness about Islam's heritage and the need to preserve it. A natural extension of this activism and discussion are questions about the people shaping Mecca: who are they, and what are their living and working conditions like?

Given the problems in accessing Saudi Arabia at the best of times, let alone during hajj, it is difficult to establish how many workers are involved with the Mecca projects, where they come from, how they are treated and how closely construction firms obey the country's labour laws. Saudi laws outline the responsibilities that employers have to protect their workers against occupational hazards, industrial accidents and workplace injuries as well as dealing with the employment of non-Saudis. Human Rights Watch has documented themistreatment of migrant workers and it is clear that existing employment legislation is no bar to abuse. Construction workers in Saudi Arabia face many of the same problems with working conditions, lack of mobility, lack of redress as other workers based in the Gulf. As in Qatar, Saudi Arabia operates a kafala system, which requires all unskilled labourers to have a sponsor. Migrant workers are therefore unable to enter the country, leave it or change jobs without their company's permission. In the spirit of openness the Saudi government could list the names of companies involved in the building projects and these companies could in turn make a pledge to uphold the rights of workers in a way that not only adheres to national legislation but also the spirit of hajj.

It may be that the very purpose of hajj makes it difficult for some to focus on the issues that the modern day pilgrimage raises. It reconnects Muslims with the religion's prophets; it represents purity, renewal, a reminder of the hereafter, unity, submission to Allah, piety, collective worship and humility. But hajj is also about equality, fraternity and justice.

While nobody is expecting banners to be unfurled in the courtyard of the Grand Mosque – although it would certainly liven up the annual television coverage – there is nothing to stop Muslims from at least asking deeper, difficult questions about the human cost of hajj.