FUTA token strike today despite pay hike circular increasing

January 16, 2012, 10:13 pm , The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

University teachers will stage their previously scheduled token strike in universities countrywide today even though the University Grants Commission issued a circular increasing salaries on Friday.

President of the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri told The Island that their main objective for staging a token strike was to get

the private universities bill abolished.

He said however, they would not accept the salary increment given in that circular.

According to the circular, Dr. Devasiri said, senior professors get a 16 per cent salary increment, but junior lectures get only 3 per cent.

"There are only 30 senior professors in the country," he said.

However, the increment mentioned in the circular would be granted only from August in two steps, the senior academic said.

Dr. Devasiri said that they were only considering a salary revision which was in the agreement entered between the FUTA and the Higher Education Minister when they suspended the trade union action in July, 2011.

He said according to that agreement the salary problem would be solved by four steps and now is the time to implement second step which add 20% increment to the basic salary of all university lecturers.

"We will go ahead with scheduled token strike today," Dr. Devasiri said adding higher education minister’s assurance to abolish the propose bill is the only way to stop it.

He said that they also demanded increment some academic allowances and allocate 6% to the higher education sector from the Gross Domestic Production (GDP).