ABSTRACT
The main public sector nurses’ union in Sri Lanka, the Public Services United Nurses Union (PSUNU), has been led by a Buddhist monk since its inception in 1969. This link between a Buddhist monk and a ‘modern’ secular institution is symbolic of a complex multilayered post-colonial history, where union strategies both contest and create consent for state strategies promoting patriarchal ethno-nationalist projects. The existence of a nurses’ union led by a Buddhist monk also reveals the limitations of women workers’ approach to mobilization, which neglects patriarchal notions of ‘femininity’ and ‘women’s work’. While the nurses’ contentious collective action in the male-dominated public sphere elaborates their class identities as women workers, their received image is one of docile professional workers aspiring for bourgeoisie respectability. In short, their collective action is shaped by a complex set of class, gender and ethnic relations that interplay in their struggles for status, respectability and dignity.
