Collective trade union strike to ‘shut down’ the country tomorrow?

The Professionals’ Trade Union Alliance (PTUA), a collective of over 30 multisectoral trade unions, is scheduled to stage a 24-hour token strike tomorrow (15 March).

Accordingly, trade unions of several sectors including power, water, education, medical, banking, postal, ports and railways are set to engage in tomorrow’s strike against the conduct of the government, including the electricity tariff hike, the unfair tax policy revision and other such unpopular decisions that were taken.

Several known trade unions including the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) and Sri Lanka Postal and Telecommunication Services Union are set to expand their already ongoing trade union action, with the former bringing functions at hospitals within the North-western, Sabaragamuwa, Northern, North-central, and Uva to a standstill today (14 March), while all post offices across the island are planning to join the strike from midnight today.

The GMOA launched a strike on Monday, bringing operations at government hospitals in the Western, Southern, Eastern, and Central provinces to a standstill, while postal trade unions halted work within Colombo from 04:00 p.m. today.

Meanwhile, unions belonging to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) claimed that only 25% of the required work was done today, causing the country a loss of nearly 75% from the revenue earned through the ports and Sri Lanka Customs.

“The ports will shut down along with the country tomorrow”, the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Workers’ Union of the SLPA, Prasanna Kalutarage said, commenting on tomorrow’s strike.

Meanwhile, the end-of-term exams in schools of several provinces which were scheduled to take place tomorrow have also been postponed, after several trade unions within the education sector, too, confirmed their participation in tomorrow’s strikes.

General Secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) Joseph Stalin confirmed that teachers, principals, advisors and those in private schools will also join tomorrow’s trade union action against the government, while Nimal Mudukotuwa, General Secretary of the Principals’’ Grade Officers’ Association stated that all Provincial Educational Directors have been informed to postpone the term tests scheduled to take place tomorrow, in view of the token strike.