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| Sunday, 17 August 2003 |
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Protest march against Railways Authority on Aug. 21 by Deepal Warnakulasuriya A large number of Railway employees and train commuters will stage a protest march from the Maradana railway station to the Ministry of Transport on August 21 to handover a petition opposing the Railways Department being converted to an Authority, to the Transport Minister, Tilak Marapana. The petition, will have in separate columns, the signatures of 15,000 of the 17,000 railways workforce, and the daily train commuters. The 'Sunday Observer' learns that the All Ceylon Railways Workers' General Employees' Union have also arranged to handover a copy of the petition with signatures to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on the same day. Union spokesman Sumathipala Manawadu said that almost all the public sector trade unions except two, had attended last week's meeting to decide on follow-up action against the Railways being converted to an Authority. Manawadu said that they would stage a workplace picketing at lunchtime on August 21 and claimed that commuters associations in 15 districts had also been asked to join them. A spokesman for the Railway Supervisory Managers' Trade Union Federation said that they would support any trade union action until such time the government withdraw its gazette notification of Railways Authority. Earlier, the union threatened to go on strike if the gazette notification was not withdrawn by August 15. However, Transport Minister Tilak Marapana reiterated that the Railways Authority would secure the employees' jobs and it would also pave the way for a better lifestyle for its employees. He said that 95 per cent of employees had already given their consent to the Authority and balance 5 per cent were operating with hidden political agendas. The Minister said that these five per cent working for petty political advantage were spreading rumours about various other issues. The rumours that it was going to be sold to the RITES Company was one such tale, he said, explaining that RITES was brought here only for consultancy services. |
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