Arjuna takes guard against railway unions

• Says he will even recruit foreigners rather than give in to union demands 

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

Transport and Civil Aviation Minister Arjuna Ranatunga, refusing to budge an inch over the strike carried out by railway trade unions representing the drivers, regulators, operators, stationmasters and the oversight managers, pledged to use railway pensioners and also to bring down foreigners to return the train service to normalcy.

The current railway strike started due to salary anomalies, but the Minister took the side of the badly-affected passengers. Ranatunga told the Parliament yesterday that he is not against trade union action but the unfair strike was launched despite ongoing discussions.  

“I summoned pensioners to service and 70 of them reported this morning. We expect more pensioners to join us in the days to come. We will take a medical certificate and assign them on a contract basis. We will not hesitate to re-employ them if required. I will not hesitate to bring the necessary workers from abroad to run the trains,” held Ranatunga, who accepted certain demands raised by trade unions as fair but need time to solve. According to Ranatunga, the salary anomaly of railway workers is a sensitive issue that needs to be solved carefully so as not to burden the Treasury by having to revise the salaries of other State employees across the country. 

“The workers do have issues and these are not new issues. It has been five months since I took the Ministry and we have discussed with the workers. But if we try to make changes to railway employees it will create salary anomalies to 518,720 other State employees. I agree that some workers do have issues. So, we wanted two months to correctly solve these. Taxpayers will be burdened if we try to pay the 518,720 additional State employees along with the railway workers. Last week the workers had a two-day strike without even informing us. Now the strike is on again,” he said.

Minister also held that he will not have a discussion unless the strike comes to an end. “Even though I will consider the trade unions and their request, this will not lead to harassing the passengers. The strike needs to be stopped if they want to come back to the discussion table.

“I want to tell this House that some of them are getting a monthly salary between Rs. 250, 000/- to Rs. 300, 000/- but will strike for small things. People should know these facts. All I wanted was for them to wait for two months. During the recent past, I have solved many other issues they had. I don’t have a political party and will not let anyone harm the passengers,” held Minister who is confident of being able to solve the railway issues within the next two weeks, using pensioners and foreign workers if necessary. 

Commending the Minster’s action taken to bring the train service back to normalcy, the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) lawmaker Mahinda Amaraweera requested that discussion be the first resort before moving onto secondary options.

“I request you first give attention to solving the issues with the trade unions by discussion. But we will not tolerate trade unions harassing the passengers. We are with you in this matter,” said MP Amaraweera. (AH)