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Railway unions insist on salary revision by Wednesday
Railway trade unions are insisting that the demands for a revision of their salaries and grades be resolved instead of waiting till a salary review committee makes it report in two months. Locomotive Engineers Union (LOEU) General Secretary D.H. Indika told the Sunday Times that they would call a strike if their demands were not met by Wednesday.
He said that they were seeking the promotion of grade II employees to grade III while increasing their salaries by Rs. 320 which would make it their basic salary Rs. 16,820 a month. Mr Indika also explained that they had issues of salary disparities at their grading and ,therefore, that issue also should be addressed before Wednesday.
He said the union leaders had presented the issues to the the National Salaries and Carder Commission on Friday. “We even agreed to make changes in our demands when we met the commission members. Now we are awaiting a response from the Commission by Monday or Tuesday,” he said.
Meanwhile, the meetings held between President Maithripala Sirisena and 12 representatives of four railway unions on Thursday failed to end the deadlock. They said they could not wait for two months until the President-appointed special commission to review public sector salaries submit its reports.
The President issued a gazette notification on Monday appointing a 15-member commission chaired by S.Rannuge, Executive Director of Transparency International.