Private sector urged to give salary increases to employees

By Padmini Matharage

Labour Minister Athauda Senevirathna has ordered Labour Commissioner Upali Wijeweera to see that salaries of private sector employees be increased in keeping with the Rs 2500 salary increase given to state employees.
When we inquired about this from Labour Commissioner Upali Wijeweera, he said that the labour minister had issued orders to give salary increases to the private sector parallel to the government sector.
The minister has emphasized that this salary increase must also be given to workers in factories coming under the BOI.

Under a special gazette notification issued by the Labour Ministry, the Rs 405 increase per day agreed to by worker unions of the tea and rubber cultivation sector and Employers’ Federation of Ceylon was made effective to workers of all estates.
However, the Inter-Company Workers’ Union point out that the labour minister’s promises were just election ‘gundus’.
Wasantha Samarasinghe, president of the union says there are only two ways within the current legal structure to increase salaries of the private sector: Either it should be through an act passed of parliament, which is not possible at this point of time, and the other is through salary regulation councils. For that, the labour commissioner must call representatives from all salary regulation councils and take a final decision. This should have been done in December if anything positive was to come out of it.