Wednesday, November 23, 2011

FUTA unhappy over Budget

 Dailymirror
University academics, who are unhappy over the government’s failure to honour the pledge to increase their salaries to a mutually agreed level in the 2012 Budget are once again mulling over the idea of resorting to trade union action to win their demands.

The Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA) President Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri said today FUTA members were thoroughly disappointed over the government’s failure to honour the July 21 agreement.

Dr. Devasiri said university academics were entitled to a 20 per cent basic pay rise in the Budget as agreed between the FUTA and the government. But only a five per cent salary increase has been mentioned in the budget. But it is not clear as to whether the increase is on the basic salary or the consolidated salary.

He said the July 2010 agreement states that the salaries of university academic staff should be raised in four stages –bringing the consolidated salary of a senior professor to Rs.168,000 a month.

Dr. Devasiri said the first stage was given in the 2011 budget but even that has many grey areas. Nobody is sure whether the five per cent salary increase for public servants comes as an allowance or an increase to the basic salary.

“We have agitating for a considerable salary increase for a long time for university academics based on their service to the nation, professionalism and academic qualifications which is the norm followed by other countries when the payment of university academics’ salaries are concerned. The Sri Lankan university academics are the lowest paid when compared with those in other countries in the region,” Dr. Devasiri said.

He said after several rounds of discussions with the Higher Education Minister and his officials, Treasury Secretary P.B. Jayasundara, Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga and UGC officials followed up with trade union action, the FUTA was able to arrive at a compromise with the government and signed the agreement with the main objective of increasing the salaries of university academics in four stages.

Dr. Devasiri said the FUTA Executive Committee would meet tomorrow to discuss the issue and the future course of action including the option to take trade union action. (Sandun A. Jayasekera)

Private medical college shouldn't award MBBS

 Dailymirror
The Malabe private medical college should never be allowed to award the Sri Lankan MBBS, Medical Faculty Students Action Committee representative Najith Indika said yesterday protesting opposite the University Grants Commission (UGC).

“How can the standard of the Malabe private medical college be compared to ours?” Mr. Indika said. According to him some of the students accepted into the Malabe private medical college have not passed the Advanced Level Examinations

“Anyone with Rs.6 million can do medicine at the Malabe private medical college which is yet to build its own hospital for the clinical training which is a necessity for any MBBS course,” Indika said.

The best of the science stream at the G.C.E. Advanced Level enter the eight medical colleges island wide and sometimes the people who get three A’s also don’t make it to the local medical colleges, Mr. Indika said.

“The resources of the local medical colleges should be expanded so that they can accommodate external students or bigger batches,” Mr. Indika said. This protest is to get the attention of President to focus his attention on the medical college issue and bring about a viable solution to this issue, he added.
Students from the eight medical faculties of the universities island wide took part in yesterday’s protest from Punchi Borella to the UGC. (Sumaiya Rizvi)

Promised pay hike not granted from budget - FUTA

, The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

The Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) yesterday said the government had reneged on its promise to increase the salary of a senior professor to Rs. 143,000 from the Budget 2012.

FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri told The Island that when they resorted to trade union action few months back demanding the rectification of their salary anomalies and a pay hike, the government had promised to consider the implementation of FUTA proposals in four phases.

The government had undertaken to increase the salaries of senior professors from the Budget as the second phase, Dr. Devasiri said. Asked whether his federation would resume trade union action in protest, he said the FUTA would take up the matter with the government first.

University teachers resigned from their voluntarily administrative posts on May 9 this year in protest against delay on the part of the government to redress their grievances. However, after a lapse of two months they suspended their trade union action when Higher Education Ministry agreed to grant their demands.

Dr. Devasiri said the FUTA was ready to resume trade union action should the government refuse to honour its promise.

"We had several discussions with the National Salaries and Cadres Commission (NSCC) and they, too, agreed to our demands," Dr. Devasiri said. He, however, noted that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had said in his budget speech that a circular would be issued to rectify the salary anomalies in the public sector by Dec. 31, 2011.

According to Secretary to the NSCC Bandula Wijeratne, the Commission is awaiting the circular, Dr. Devasiri said.

University teachers resorted to trade union action to pressure the government to rectify their salary anomalies on March 15 this year.

Neglected in budget, jobless graduates to launch continuous protest

, The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Unemployed graduates, who had been waiting for nearly eight years to secure government jobs, yesterday threatened to launch a continuous protest campaign as the 2012 budget had neglected them.

Addressing a press conference in Colombo, Convener of the Combined Association of Unemployed Graduates, Lunugamvehere Kalyanaransi thera, said that they had high hopes that the budget would allocate funds to provide them with jobs, but it had failed.

"The 2012 budget totally neglected the unemployed graduates," he said adding this was the third time that the government neglected the issue in the budget.

Kalyanaransi thera said that the Rajapaksa government had promised 8,000 jobs in the 2007 budget and 15,000 jobs in the 2008 budget. In the 2009 budget, the government promised 17,500 jobs for graduates and it planned to recruit 14,500 as Jana Sabha Secretaries and 3,177 as aesthetic teachers.

But the government has broken all such promises, he said.

He said that the government completely forgot the issue in the 2010 and 2011 budgets.

Answering a query, Kalyanaransi thera said that there were more than 19,000 vacancies remaining in the public sector, but the government did not take any action to fill those vacancies with them.

However, there were 42,000 unemployed graduates waiting for jobs at present, he said.

According to him, they had already started their protest at provincial level. They have held protest marches and awareness rallies in the Southern, North Central and Eastern Provinces, he said.

"Our next protest would bring all our members to Colombo to participate in a demonstration," Kalyanaransi thera said adding if the government keeps turning ablind eye even after that they would resort to a continuous agitation.

Medical U’grads protest against MPMC

, The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe
Medical undergraduates yesterday launched protests opposite the University Grants Commission (UGC) in Ward Place and the Higher Education Ministry demanding an immediate end to the Malabe Private Medical College project which got underway in 2009.

Police headquarters moved in additional personnel as undergraduates caused massive traffic jams in the area for about two hours.

Organizers told The Island that about 2,000 undergraduates had been involved in the protest, the latest in a series held to pressure Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake to abandon the Malabe project.

They vowed to continue their protests until the government abandoned the project. A group of undergraduates made representations to Higher Education Secretary Dr. Sunil Navaratne.

Budget a broken promise - union

, The Island,

The 2012 budget had not conferred the promised salary increase of 10 per cent to the state sector, the Public Service Trade Union Confederation said. "The budget has instead conferred a 10 per cent increase of allowances received by the state sector employees," Secretary to the confederation, Saman Rathnapriya said.

The incumbent regime had repeatedly broken the promise given to the state sector employees during the last presidential election regarding increasing their salaries by Rs. 2,500.

"Under the proposed budget only those who hold higher positions in the state sector would receive Rs. 2,500 in allowances while the lower level employees would receive a lesser amount," he said.

Rathnapriya also said that under the current proposals the doctors would receive an additional allowance of Rs. 2,500 and this discrepancy was a major injustice done to nurses and professions supplementary to medicine.

Meanwhile the Chief Minister of Sabaragamuwa province, Maheepala Herath said that allocating Rs. 40 billion for the fertilizer subsidy for the farmers and Rs. 15 billion to develop underdeveloped villages was an admirable move by the government.

"Reducing the poverty level in Sri Lanka from 15.5 per cent to 8.09 per cent at a time even the western super powers had faced an economic downturn is obviously a hint that Sri Lanka is on the verge of becoming the miracle of Asia," he said.

Issuing a statement the Secretary of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, Karunathilaka Dissanayake said that the budget would improve every aspect of the economic sector of the country providing concessions for all the ethnicities in Sri Lanka. (PH)

 

Non-academics give Govt. time to rectify anomalies



by Dasun Edirisinghe, The Island.

University non-academics yesterday said that they would give the government time until January 01 to rectify the anomalies in their salaries. This follows discussions they had with Higher Education Secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne at the ministry.

President of the Inter University Trade Union Federation R. M. Chandrapala told ‘The Island’ that Dr. Navaratne promised to work according to the proposed circular, which was to be issued, to rectify the anomalies in public sector salaries before December 31.

Dr. Navaratne, the Additional Secretary to the Ministry and eight members from the university trade unions attended a two-hour-long meeting yesterday.

He said that it was included in the 2012 budget which was presented in Parliament by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday.

"We were waiting to win our demand since 2006," Chandrapala said, adding that this was the last time they were going to be deceived by government promises.

University non-academics, including executive and administration officers, had been waiting for the rectification of their salary anomalies for the past six years and they were at the end of their tether. They staged a token strike on Nov. 02.