UNP calls for a new culture in trade union action

Tuesday, 31 July 2018 00:13 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

United National Party yesterday called for a new culture in trade union action to make Governments accountable without holding public to ransom as the Government Medical Officers’ Union readies to launch an all-island strike action on 3 August.

Bringing in the example of the Japanese bus drivers’ strike which caught world attention in May, UNP Spokesperson Minister Harin Fernando, speaking to media at the Party’s Headquarters Sirikotha, said Sri Lankan trade unions should follow the example, without inconveniencing the public when they take trade union action.

“They didn’t inconvenience the public. I think that is what should happen. If they want the Government to sit up and notice, then deny us the income and make us sit up. But today, the trade unions are not engaged in politics,” he told journalists.

Likening the trade unions, GMOA and collective of railway unions to the caged bird returning to captivity, the Minister said that trade unions with political motives are trying to bring back an era when there was no freedom.

“There is freedom now and that is being misused. These trade unions are focused on political agendas. That is why they are engaging in this kind of trade union action,” he claimed.

Accusing GMOA Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya of being aligned with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Minister alleged that the trade union action taken by the Government Doctors’ is in support of the Rajapaksa camp.

Calling the band of three Rajapaksa brothers’ the three-headed dragon, Fernando claimed that the main man behind all three is Mahinda Rajapaksa calling the shots. The Minister warned that any political action pursued by trade unions to bring the Rajapaksa family back to power will also curtail the freedoms enjoyed by the public now.

The UNP has already commenced its campaigning for the upcoming Provincial Council polls, although no date has been fixed by the Commissioner of Elections yet, the Minister said.

Claiming that the delay in holding elections was due to delay in decision-making by Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Faiszer Mustapha, Fernando said that his Party, the UNP, is ready to hold elections at any time.

“We are ready to hold elections, and as a member of the UNP Polity Bureau, I can say that the Party is ready to face elections and we have started our campaigns, too. But, the holdup is with Faiszer Mustapha,” he said.