Labour laws to be unified within new changes
Sri Lanka’s labour laws are about to change and authorities are to open up the space for public debate in June this year.
Labour Ministry Secretary Ananda Wimalaweera speaking with the Business Times on Wednesday said that the labour laws in the country today are outdated.
As a result authorities opine that without having a number of separate legislations they would want it all to be unified.
The Secretary pointed out that at present there are different legislations for varied services and the aim is to unify these.
However, when queried on the changes likely to come about particularly to the 8-working hours per day, he said that those will not be changed.
But he noted that “flexibility will be brought in,” although he did not want to elaborate on this aspect of changes likely to take effect under the draft of the new labour laws.
The government is to open this bill for public debate in the first or second week of June, according to Mr. Wimalaweera.
However, trade unionists point out that this piece of new legislation is likely to lead to an extension of the number of working hours in a 4-day work week.
FTZ Workers Trade Union General Secretary Anton Marcus told the Business Times that the new laws are likely to cause much disruption in the workplace.
He noted that the compressed working week of four days per week with 12 hours per day was also in line with an earlier proposal. Moreover, he noted that according to the information given to them by the Labour authorities it is understood that night work of 10 days per month will be increased to 15 days per month from 10.00 pm to 6 am.
Mr. Marcus pointed out that this unified labour law will be brought about after scrapping the current Labour Advisory Council.
In this respect, he opined there will be increased exploitation of the female workforce.
In the meantime, trade unions are readying to submit a complaint with the European Union (EU) in line with the annual review of the granting of concessions to the apparel sector in Sri Lanka.
He pointed out that today employers are using employees’ councils against the trade unions.
In this respect, workers are encouraged to establish employee councils and bargaining is carried out with them bypassing the trade unions, Mr. Marcus explained.
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