Collective agreement signed on plantation workers' salary increase

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 December 2006, 18:14 GMT]
Representatives of the Employers' Federation and the trade unions, Ceylon Workers Congress, Ceylon Estate Workers Union and Plantations Union, have signed a collective agreement regard to the daily salary increase of the plantations workers Tuesday morning in the presence of President Mahinda Rajapakse at Temple Trees, the State-run Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) said in its Tuesday noon news broadcast in all three languages quoting government sources.

According to the agreement, the daily wage of the estate worker is to be increased to Rs: 260/= backdated from November this year. Gothabaya Dassanayake, Chairman of the Employers Federation and representatives of trade unions signed the agreement, SLBC news report said.

Meanwhile other private electronic media reported that plantation workers have been continuing their strike in plantation areas demanding a salary increase of 300 rupees per day.

One news report said quoting P.Chandrasekaran, Minister and the leader of the Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) that Mahinda Rajapakse has invited him urgently for a discussion this evening.