POSTAL WORKERS TO STRIKE (99 Feb 17)
The postal workers have taken a decision to launch a token strike on the twenty second of February as a protest against the government's move to restructure the postal department into a corporation. A bill to set up the postal corporation was introduced in the parliament on Wednesday the tenth by the minister Mr. Mangala Samaraweera.
The unions of the postal workers consider the setting up of the corporation as the first step towards privitaisation of the postal services. They also claim that the workers who have served less than ten years would not be absorbed in to the corporation and that amounts to a violation of human rights. Already some workers have gone to the supreme court over this matter.
The postal department is nearly two hundred years old and many people believe that once it is made a corporation and then privatised some of the services offered to the public would be terminated as they are not profit making.
The government is determined to go ahead with the proposal as it is one of the requirements of the world bank and the IMF. There is a possibility of the postal services coming to a standstill as a result of the stand taken by the government. What is clear is that countries like Sri Lanka are in reality ruled by the so-called aid giving countries and the organisations controlled by these countries.