A dispute has risen between the Board of Investment (BOI) companies in the free trade zones (FTZs) and the zones’ worker unions, with the latter claiming the employees have not been remunerated while the former insists both wages and April bonuses have been paid.
The dispute arose after Minister of Industrial Exports and Investment Promotion Prasanna Ranatunga last week instructed the BOI to close all the FTZs in the country until further notice. On Thursday (26), thousands of employees working in the FTZs took to the streets in protest, demanding that their salaries be paid.
However, the BOI yesterday (28) asserted that salaries for March had been paid along with bonuses for April.
“In fact, enterprises have paid workers for the months of March and have provided advances for the April Sinhala and Tamil New Year festival,” BOI Director of Media and Publicity Dilip Samarasinghe told The Sunday Morning.
In addition, he said that no complaints had been made to the BOI regarding the matter. “No formal complaints have been made with the BOI regarding the non-payment of any salaries,” he said.
When contacted, Inter-Company Employees Union (ICEU) President Wasantha Samarasinghe charged that the Government was making false claims. “The BOI is lying. No salaries have been paid. If not, why would thousands of workers be protesting on the streets?” he asked.
He said that only the February salaries had been paid and called on the Government to step in and resolve the issue.
“This crisis took a turn for the worse in mid-March and the lockdown occurred around the 16th. So how could this month’s salaries have been paid? The Government must direct the private sector companies to pay salaries in this time of crisis, especially with prolonged curfews,” W. Samarasinghe said.
The Covid-19 pandemic has generated interlocking crises at multiple levels. ESSF is providing thematic and geographic coverage in English and French.
View all articles using keyword Coronavirus/Covid-19 (EN). To display English and French articles, use Coronavirus / Covid-19 (EN, FR).
Our regional and country pages include articles on labour and community struggles, the abuse of emergency powers and other topics. Use the continent tabs at the top of the page to find the country or group of countries that interests you.
Public health issues are mostly in country-specific health/epidemic pages (European Union, Great Britain, France,
USA, Pakistan, India, Philippines,Malaysia, etc.) This page presents a selection of articles of regional or global relevance.
We have also selected a few articles with a global political analysis, as well as a few articles tracking the emergence of global progressive movements related to the pandemic.
We are increasing our coverage of left parties’ and movements’ declarations and proposals. See for example these pages for the European Union countries.
ESSF is raising funds for the Labour Relief Campaign in Pakistan which supports workers and families impacted by the pandemic. We will announce other solidarity initiatives in the coming days and week.s
New articles on our site are highlighted in periodic updates by Mark Johnson.
The Sunday Morning
Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletters in English and or French. You will receive one email every Monday containing links to all articles published in the last 7 days.