Cyanide Capsule

Moves by the Sri Lankan government to slip in a law to mandate a pay hike among private businesses, has irked top trade chambers and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon.



Moves by the Sri Lankan government to slip in a law to mandate a pay hike among private businesses, has irked top trade chambers and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon. The voting catching move for a Rs. 1,000 pay hike this year was earlier limited to state employees.

But the government is now succumbing to trade union pressures led by its key coalition partner the JVP.

"It's unfair, it's unjust. It tantamount to interference in the way we run our business. It will disrupt all previously agreed collective agreements," a visibly annoyed Gotabaya Dassanayake, Secretary General of the Employers' Federation of Ceylon (EFC) told journalists late Thursday.

The EFC, which represents 80 percent of the formalized private sector led business entities, plays a key role in resolving industrial disputes and striking collective bargaining pacts.

"Such wage increases would only serve to further fuel inflation and adversely impact the competitiveness of Sri Lankan exports.

We strongly object to a wage incr