P’liament passes Minimum Wage Bill

By Ashwin Hemmathagama Our Lobby Correspondent

Lawmakers on Friday passed the National Minimum Wage of Workers Bill and Budgetary Relief Allowance of Workers Bill in Parliament with amendments.

The new Act provides for the payment of the budgetary relief allowance to workers of all trades and industries. The provisioned allowance of Rs. 1,500 should be paid with effect from 1 May 2015 for all workers receiving a monthly a monthly wage less than Rs. 40,000. 

Moving forward, the Act also prescribes a payment of Rs. 1,000 to all workers eligible to receive the Rs. 1,500 budgetary relief allowance as an additional allowance with effect from January 2016. According to the National Minimum Wage of Workers Act, the minimum national wage is now set at Rs. 10,000.

Moving the bills, which were presented in the Parliament on 18 February, Minister of Labour and Trade Unions Relations W.D.J. Senewiratne said:



 “Having followed 14 days from the day these bills got moved here in Parliament, we expected to take them up for the second reading on 5 March. However, with the delayed determination received from the Supreme Court, we were unable to proceed. There were several petitions which were rejected by Supreme Court. However, we have amended several things in these Bills, which will be taken up today.”

Listing the recommendation of the Supreme Court, the Minister said: “The Minister’s authority to take action against a company running at a loss for over a period of 12 months has been limited by the Supreme Court. Appropriate guidelines are formulated for the Minister to exercise his authority during the committee stage as per the determination.”