{"id":366800,"date":"2018-06-26T08:59:46","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T07:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/sri-lanka-striking-postal-workers-criticise-the-trade-unions\/"},"modified":"2018-06-26T08:59:46","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T07:59:46","slug":"sri-lanka-striking-postal-workers-criticise-the-trade-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/sri-lanka-striking-postal-workers-criticise-the-trade-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka: Striking postal workers criticise the trade unions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Sri Lanka: Striking postal workers criticise the trade unions<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    our correspondents<br \/>\n    <br \/>26 June 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Hundreds of postal workers held demonstrations yesterday in several parts of Sri Lanka, including Colombo, Gampaha, Galle, Ambalangoda, Kaluthara and Trincomalee in support of their demands. The national strike of more than 25,000 postal workers that began on June 11 has now entered its third week.<\/p>\n<p>The government is adamant that it will not grant the workers\u2019 demand to abolish the 2006 circular, which has affected promotion and slashed salaries. The minister of postal services, M.H.A Haleem, yesterday evening stated that a \u201csolution\u201d would be found today, but did not say how. Last week he attacked the strike as being \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d and aimed at \u201ctoppling the government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On his instructions, postal authorities cancelled the leave of postal workers and threatened to sack those who failed to report for duty by June 19. The government also took a decision to deploy police at post offices. Despite these threats, however, the government failed to break the strike.<\/p>\n<p>The National Salary and Cadre Commission (NSCC) told the press that the government has no money to grant the workers\u2019 demands. The NSCC declared that \u201cit will cost the government\u201d an additional 8 billion rupees ($US51 million), adding that granting the demands would create \u201ccomplications\u201d and anomalies in relation to other public sector workers.<\/p>\n<p>The government has intensified its implementation of the economic reforms dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including freezing salaries and the privatization of public services, including the postal department.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/579314e0-f631-4641-974e-9c8465503bbD\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\" srcset=\"\/asset\/579314e0-f631-4641-974e-9c8465503bbD\/image.jpg?rendition=image960 2x\" width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>Striking postal workers last week<\/span><\/div>\n<p>The Joint Postal Trade Union Collective (JPTUC) and Union of Postal and&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/06\/26\/post-j26.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Sri Lanka: Striking postal workers criticise the trade unions By our correspondents 26 June 2018 Hundreds of postal workers held demonstrations yesterday in several parts of Sri Lanka, including Colombo, Gampaha, Galle, Ambalangoda, Kaluthara and Trincomalee in support of their demands. The national strike of more than 25,000 postal workers that began on June [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-366800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}