TU leaders say Govt. has agreed teachers’ pay hike in one go
COLOMBO – Discussion between Sri Lanka’s school teachers’ unions and the cash-strapped government ended in a win for the unions on Wednesday (10), with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa agreeing to pay the teachers a long-demanded salary increment in one go.
General Secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union, Joseph Stalin confirmed Wednesday that the government had agreed to include the pay hike in the 2022 budget proposals that will be presented to parliament by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa on Friday (12).
The past few months saw the unions and the government at loggerheads over salary anomalies that had plagued the service for 24 years. School teachers and principals were on a strike for a record 100+ days, and though they returned to work on October 25, protests continued islandwide with teachers demanding the government, battling various crises including an ailing economy, find a solution to their woes fast.
Multiple proposals by the government to resolve the issue in a phased out manner were rejected by the striking teachers and principals who demanded the matter be resolved in one go.
Though the striking teachers and principals returned to school, they refrained from participating in non-academic activities at schools.
Stalin said a decision on strikes and other trade union actions will be reached on Thursday (11) after further discussion within the teacher and principal unions’ alliance.
-economynext.com