Water Board employees on strike till tomorrow

by Rukshana Rizwie

Over 11,000 employees of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board will remain on strike till tomorrow, December 28 demanding that the authorities pay their full year-end bonus, while failure to do so would result in further strike action.

Convener of the Trade Union Alliance, Upali Rathnayake told the Sunday Observer that it was a common practice at the NWSDB to increase their annual year-end bonus, however out of the Rs.37,500 stipend which the employees were expecting to receive, only Rs. 25,000 has been paid.

"On the 23rd of this month, some of the employees who maintain accounts at the Bank of Ceylon, where the NWSDB operates its main account, were credited with Rs.25,000," he said. "Many of the other employees who have accounts at other bank have not received this sum and will not until the bank holidays are over."

Rathnayake lamented that the NWSDB authorities claimed that the reduced bonus was due to a lack of funds.

"It is not a valid reason," he said. "This year alone the Water Board took in 480 new employees when there was not a single cadre vacancy, and it also obtained a loan of Rs. 60 billion from a local bank for so-called development projects, without competitive bidding."

He added that employees were promised by the authorities that the balance payment would be paid within the next six months which he says he farcical. "If they can employ so many new recruits and take such massive loans, surely they can make the bonus payments."

He said they would continue the strike until 12 noon on December 28 and if the authorities fail to make the balance payment, the strike would continue.