The Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC), which wants to alter the normal working week, has expressed disappointment over the slow progress of the NLAC’s (National Labour Advisory Council) on this issue. In a letter to Labour Minister Gamini Lokuge, the EFC expressed its concern on the delay on making urgent and imperative amendments to current [...]

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Lankan employers push for flexi working hours

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The Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC), which wants to alter the normal working week, has expressed disappointment over the slow progress of the NLAC’s (National Labour Advisory Council) on this issue.

In a letter to Labour Minister Gamini Lokuge, the EFC expressed its concern on the delay on making urgent and imperative amendments to current employment legislation in two key areas.

The first would give employers the option of spreading the Saturday work hours over a 5-day working week. The EFC letter quoted the minutes from the NLAC meeting back in August which said “the Hon. Minister promised to submit a draft amendment at the next NLAC” for discussion.

However the EFC said in a media statement that at the NLAC meeting last week, instead of an amendment to legislation being presented, Ministry representatives stated that the “administrative relaxation” that had been provided for six months to allow a suitable amendments to be agreed, would now be extended for one year, because trade unions were opposed to any changes in legislation being made.

“The EFC pointed out that this was the second occasion where the NLAC had retracted its position after having reached an agreement,” the statement said.

The letter also reminded the Minister of the pre-budget meeting held by the President which had been attended by both parties.

The EFC had put forward proposals with regard to the spread of Saturday working hours over a five day working week and also with regard to the relaxing of restrictions on night work for women in shops and offices.

At that meeting, the President agreed with the EFC that the amendment to the spread of working hours was required and inquired what the Ministry intended to do to resolve the matter. Confirmation that the NLAC would address the matter and bring it to a final conclusion was assured at that time. The EFC letter stated that extending the administrative relaxation was not a final conclusion in the resolution of this issue, and again stressed the difficulties that the current working week laws posed for manufacturing companies, especially in relation to compliance regulations.

At the same pre-budget meeting the EFC proposed changes to laws relating to night work for women. Once again, the President had agreed that the necessary changes to the law were very important and should be addressed without any further delay.

The EFC letter noted that the recently launched National Human Resource and Employment Policy clearly stipulated working environments had to be conducive to attract more foreign direct investment, especially in the BPO sector which is Sri Lanka’s big growth industry right now.

The EFC reiterated that by simply extending the current “exempted categories” of female employees, to include women workers in the information technology industry and supermarket industry, the currently restrictive legislation would go a long way to expanding employment opportunities for women and also attracting foreign BPO companies to set up operations in Sri Lanka.




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