Lanka Floor Tiles sorting department employees strike

By Dinali Goonewardene

Lanka Floor Tiles Plc said 50 employees attached to its sorting department at its factory in Ranala had struck work in an illegal work stoppage on Friday 2 December.

Production at the factory came to a halt on 3 December (Saturday), the company said in a stock exchange filling. The company is losing Rs. 2 million to Rs. 3 million each day the strike continues.

Lanka Floor Tiles Managing Director Mahendra Jayasekera told the Daily FT that an employee from the sorting depart responsible for checking quality had been transferred to a location outside the factory to take care of quality checking work for a period, causing the employees to resort to strike action.

However, the management has said he could not be brought back and the management had the right to make such a transfer. The employees had brought up other issues which had been resolved with Labour Department officials, who had also been involved in advising employees and resolving issues.

The management has expressed its willingness to transfer employees back after two months, Jayasekera said, adding that another four employees would be required to work outside the factory for a two-month period before being brought back.

As the company could not resolve the issue of the transfer with the employees, the sorting department had struck, causing work upstream to come to a standstill. However, other employees had not resorted to strike action and the company had been successful in getting casual workers and employees on contract to stand in to continue production.

Lanka Floor Tiles’ sales levels remained unchanged at Rs. 1.43 billion in the six months to September 2011 while profits grew 32% over the same period last year to Rs. 142 million.

Lanka Floor Tiles, previously named Lanka Tiles, is a subsidiary of Lanka Walltiles, whose core business is in glazed ceramic floor tiles. It also manufactures wall tiles, sanitary ware, tableware and electro porcelain and mines and processes raw materials.

The company’s shares closed Rs. 5 lower at Rs. 80 on Monday when 307,000 shares traded.