POWER MINISTRY STANDS FIRM

Casual employees who fail to report for duty would be deemed to have vacated posts :

CEB TU Convenor says they are ready to face consequences :

A defiant Power and Energy Ministry has asked all employees who retired after September 1, 2014 to report to work as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) trade unions decided to continue their strike for the fourth consecutive day.

The Ministry on Thursday night had warned casual employees and those on probation, that if they did not report to work yesterday (15), the Ministry would consider them to have vacated their posts.

The CEB is estimated to have 4000-5000 employees working on a casual and probationary basis. CEB National Electricity Workers’ Union Convener Ranjan Jayalal reiterated that no CEB worker would report to work and that they are ready to face the consequences if the Ministry decided to take any action.

He said that they would continue to strike until they receive a favourable response to their demands from Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya.

Jayalal added that as the discussion they had with the Minister and the Ministry Secretary on Thursday (14) was unsuccessful they would continue to strike. CEB cancelled leave of all CEB employees from Wednesday (13) until September 20.

The decision was taken after the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Workers’ Union announced that they would launch an indefinite strike from Tuesday (12) over several demands including the revision of the salary ratio from 1:6 to 1:9.

They also warned that no repair work will be carried out in the case of a breakdown or power failure except at government hospitals, during the strike.

Power and Renewable Energy Ministry Secretary B.M.S Batagoda said there had been no issues so far and the CEB would continue to function with the available staff.

“The Ministry suggested just solutions to their demands but the trade union employees are refusing to accept them.

“We are now taking measures to deal with the issues and so far the situation is under control,” he added.