Strikes by electricity workers and disaster relief service workers

A coalition of twenty-one trade unions belonging to the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) launched a symbolic strike today (26) against the authorities' silent policy regarding eight key demands they put forward. According to the Ceylon Electricity Board Trade Union Alliance, this strike action will commence today at 12:00 noon and continue for six hours until 6:00 PM.

During this six-hour period, all departments of the Electricity Board will be completely inactive, and the alliance emphasizes that employees will not take action to restore any power outages reported during the said period. In addition, administrative work will also come to a complete halt as office staff will also join this protest. The strikers point out that they were compelled to resort to such a drastic decision due to the authorities continuously delaying their fair and just demands, and that their unions had no other alternative.

They state that the Minister of Power has been duly informed in this regard, and mention that several major trade unions, including the Engineers' Union, the Technical Engineers' Superintendents' Union, the Technicians' Union, as well as the Free and National Employees' Unions, are providing full support for this trade union action.

Meanwhile, the All Ceylon Disaster Relief Services Trade Union has decided to completely withdraw from duties related to paying relief funds to people affected by the recent 'Ditwa' cyclone, starting from tomorrow (27). Mr. Palitha Upul Kumara, the president of the union, stated that this decision was taken based on the fact that the allowances promised to their officers through a cabinet paper have not yet been provided, officers are being put in an unsafe situation during relief operations, and the guidelines provided for compensation payments are not being properly followed.

The president points out that while their union has no objection to the government's program of providing five hundred thousand rupees in compensation for disaster victims, the government has put Grama Niladharis (village officers) and disaster relief service officers at severe risk through the process of distributing these funds. Mr. Palitha Upul Kumara further stated that the decision to withdraw from these duties was reached during a joint discussion held with all trade unions on the 23rd, with the aim of winning their demands against the severe chaotic situation in the compensation payment program and the reduction of promised allowances.