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“Death of a legend”, “hero of trade-union movement”, “quintessence of trade-unionism” – the Sri Lankan press and trade-union movement were unanimous in the comments that followed our comrade and friend Bala Tampoe’s death on 1st September 2014. As the former Volvo trade-union leader Göte Kilden said, “had Tampoe carried out his work in one of Europe’s former colonial powers, such as France or Great Britain, his death and remembrance of his life would have been front-page news in all the main media.As one of Sri Lanka’s main trade-union leaders over the past 60 years, Bala Tampoe negotiated on behalf of workers and made all governments tremble. During 1970 negotiations that Bala had secured through public protest, government minister and former party comrade Colvin R. de Silva (Bala had broken with him in 1964 when de Silva chose to take his party into a bourgeois government) said of him that he was “one of the finest minds not only in trade-union circles but in the whole country.” I personally had occasion to meet Bala in the 1980s and 1990s. During his visits to Europe, he came to me with questions about the rebirth of the workers movement in Poland. I remember him as a very respectful leader who listened closely to the young activist that I was at the time.via: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3849