The Ceylon Electricity Board Joint Trade Union will launch a protest opposite the CEB headquarters today.
This is to protest against the Power and Energy Ministry decision to revoke the allowance paid to the clerical and other staff and the preferential treatment given to technical staff.
Speaking to the Daily News, CEB National Worker's Association Secretary Ajith Devapriya said the engineers are manipulating the authorities and fulfilling their needs while the other staff and clerical staff are being deprived of their dues and penalized unfairly.
“Last year we signed an agreement 12/1 with the Labour Commission and CEB officials including the General Manager. Although we had launched a strike, after five days we abandoned the strike having come to an agreement with the authorities. During these negotiations they agreed to add 13 percent of the salary to the basic salary of the technical staff, 8 percent for other technical grades and only 10 percent for the clerical and other allied service staff. However, in spite of the lesser increment, the clerical and allied services increment of 10 percent was added as an allowance and not added to the basic salary. Only the technical staff had the 13 percent increment added to their basic salary,” he explained.
However, in January 2018, a letter had been sent to the CEB general manager signed by an Additional secretary of the Power and Energy Ministry, named Kumarihamy, cancelling the 10 percent allowance that was being paid to the clerical and other allied services staff. “This is a deliberate act of discrimination. By only paying the technical services employees and cancelling our allowance payment, these authorities are trying to create friction between the unions and the staff grades. We conducted a very successful protest campaign earlier and this is an attempt to break that alliance and divide us,” he said.
According to Devapriya the CEB and the Ministry is being manipulated by the engineers who are running a mafia. “They are manipulating the officials and somehow getting their demands fulfilled while depriving the others of their payments. For the 5 ½ days that we were on strike, the engineers had been paid extra and while their salaries alone are over Rs 100,000 they were also paid an additional Rs.100,000 just for the five days. But, they did nothing extra and as such why should they be paid extra? This is blatant injustice towards the other CEB staff. The engineers are being paid bonuses and other allowances, while the rest of us get nothing,” he lamented.
Therefore, Devapriya said they would all surround the CEB Headquarters and launch a protest demanding for their rights which had been deprived to them unfairly be restored.
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