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Winners and losers in staggered work hours plan
The new working hours announced by the Government are receiving bouquets and brickbats as transport experts praise efforts to ease traffic congestion while employees raise concerns over the availability of public transport, safety – particularly of female employees – and loss of quality family time.
Office workers queuing up at the Fort Railway station. Pic by Sameera Weerasekera
Transport Minister Mahinda Amaraweera this week announced that new working hours have been proposed by a ministry committee tasked with finding ways of reducing traffic congestion while maintaining COVID-19 safety guidelines.
The committee has recommended that the public sector should operate from 9 a.m. to 4.45 p.m. and the private sector from 9.45 a.m. to 6.45 p.m. The new working hours would be implemented in August only after Cabinet approval.
Working mothers, female employees and parents who drop their children off at school on the way to work are particularly concerned by the difficulties they would face if the private sector had to work the new hours.
Dr. Hasuli Perera, 32, a working mother of two young children and lecturer in Human Resource Management, said, “From a practical point, working mothers will reach home well after 7 p.m. and will not be able to take effective care of their families. They will be unavailable to assist young children with school work. This decision will also push back meal preparation and eating times,” she said.
Such work-life conflict could raise stress levels and even contribute to a reduction in female participation in the private sector labour force, she said.
“The proposed starting time does not favour working parents who need to drop their children off at school by 7.30 a.m, especially if transport is with one vehicle. Daycare centres only operate till 5 p.m,” said another parent who travels from Gampaha to Colombo daily and used to drop his child off at school.
Sachitra, 30, works for a private company in Narahenpita, Colombo 5, and travels from Kalutara every day.
“Travel to work and returning home is exhausting when one needs to travel both by train and bus. Before such working hours are implemented, it is essential to make sure the public transport system is properly functioning even in the outstations as most employees will rely on it,” she said.
Sachitra added that travelling after 8 p.m. on rural roads that are barely lit up could discourage women, who are reliant on public transport, from working.
Sri Lanka Railways General Manager Dilantha Fernando said if the new plan is implemented, 49 office trains would be allocated to the staggered work transport schedule both morning and evening.
“We are preparing timetables on how to accommodate passengers. At present due to the COVID situation, passenger transport is limited to seating capacity but even so there is crowding because all report to work at the same time and leave at the same time,” he said adding that about 150,000 passengers travel daily to Colombo.
Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) Chairman Kingsley Ranawaka said the board was looking at areas where bus services are poor and have commenced providing office transport to areas and offices.
He said the SLTB was focusing on addressing problems that lay ahead. “Such working hours can be implemented successfully only if the public transport is available even at nights,” he pointed out.
The commencement of the new working hours would be marked by a “low-revenue period” for train and bus operations, transport expert Dr. T.Sivakumar of the Department of Transport and Logistics at the University of Moratuwa warned. “The transport sector will experience financial losses as it will be carrying a limited number of passengers at various times so the government should provide relief to the transport industry.”
He said further studies were needed before implementing the proposed changes as to who should start work earlier, and other issues.
“With COVID-19, the public became used to flexible working hours and passenger traffic became controlled by the availability of public transport. This is the right time to break the huge inflow of working staff entering Colombo and leaving by introducing staggered working hours. This is one very effective way to reduce the city’s traffic congestion,” the former chairman of the National Transport Commission, Professor Amal Kumarage, said.Rs. 1 billion worth of fuel was wasted daily by traffic congestion, Minister Amaraweera said this week.