FUTA Declares a continuous strike to be launched on 4th July 2012
Download the the FUTA media statements issued on 14/06/2012 from googledocs:
Tamil Version
English Version
Sinhala Version
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Jaffna hospital docs trade allegations
June 15, 2012, 9:53 pm , the island.By Don Asoka Wijewardena
Jaffna Teaching Hospital Consultant Oncologist Dr. Nadaraja Jayakumaran yesterday accused the present hospital administration of damaging his residence after he revealed a plethora of irregularities and malpractices in the hospital.
On June 14 at about 1.30 a.m. a gang had shattered the windows of his residence and smeared the walls with burnt engine oil.
He had complained to the Jaffna police and two constables had been detailed to guard his residence.
Jaffna police were investigating the attack, the Government Medical Officers’ Association said.
Dr. Jayakumaran told The Island that the present hospital administration was involved in massive corrupt practices such as selling hospital property to outsiders for a song, defrauding public money, mismanaging wards by giving priority to the hospital director’s favourites and refusing to accept the appointments of an oral maxilo-facial surgeon, oncologist and senior registrar.
He said that the hospital had recently sold six iron girders to a person for Rs. 1 million. A generator which could supply electricity during black outs had been taken to a press, located in the Jaffna city, with the consent of the hospital director. It was later found that the generator was sold to the press. A few CEB engineers had been detailed to attend to the repairs at the hospital. But, without calling them, the management had sold the generator to a private press.
The Health Ministry appointed a consultant oncology surgeon, oral maxillary surgeon and a few senior registrars, but the hospital director had rejected the appointments for reasons known only to him.
Law Faculty sets a precedent
There is nothing wrong in resorting to a strike as a collective bargaining strategy to win the rights of the working class. Though the right to strike is not in black and white in our law books, its implications are accepted in our jurisdiction from the respective statutes (Constitution, Industrial Dispute Act etc.) and from the line of cases heard in the superior courts. Therefore, the trade union action has a good legal pedigree, at a glance, as long as they do not come under essential services.
We are having our final Law exams at this moment. Students attend their exams as usual as on previous occasions. The exam hall is well-prepared for this. We are given question papers in the same way as previous years. Apparently, exams run smoothly as before. But, one thing is missing— the non-academic staff that were in full attendance on other occasions. In such a situation would anyone accept as true that the Faculty of Law is conducting her Final Years’ exams without the use of elbow grease by the non-academic staff? Could you ever believe that the Dean of a Faculty would present himself early in the morning to do the job of opening the doors of the exam hall, which under normal circumstances is a duty exclusively set aside for the non-academic staff of a university? However, I have heard that Professor Timothy Endicott, Professor of Legal Philosophy and Dean at the University of Oxford used to show up at the University early in the day to open some halls as there was no one around to do the job at the time. Nevertheless, in Sri Lanka, it is rare to see University lecturers prepare desks and chairs and work hard to make the exam hall fit for conducting examination, as we got the luxury of non-academic staff to do such work.
Almost all the Universities in the country are at a standstill and students are at home due to the strike. The only institution going against the tide is the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo. This is one of the virtues that students expect from their mentors – teachers. In this context, one incident that took place at the Harvard Law School is noteworthy. A rare academic-staff strike led by a well-known Professor at Harvard, Mr. Derrick Bell had been called regarding racial discrimination in the appointments of the law school. It was totally a humanitarian issue. This sort of instances show us how university scholars can contribute something more through their respective fields just like the Colombo Law Faculty is doing at present, rather than being labelled as armchair academics.
Galagama Ashan Nanayakkara
Final Year Student of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo
Workshop on universities begins on Monday
June 15, 2012, 9:54 pm, the islandA workshop on ‘Re-creating and re-positioning Sri Lankan Universities to meet emerging challenges and opportunities in a globalized environment’ will be held on June 18 and 19, 2012 at Hotel Sands, Kalutara
Minister of Higher Education S. B. Dissanayake will be the Chief Guest at the workshop to be attended by around 70 participants, including the Secretary to the Ministry, Chairman and members of the UGC, past Vice-Chancellors, current Vice Chancellors, senior dons, representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Economic Development, Board of Investment, the private sector and foreign missions in Colombo.
Ten speakers, including two distinguished guest speakers from abroad, will make presentations. The proceedings of the workshop will be published and its recommendations will be submitted to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Minister of Higher Education for implementation.
The Keynote Speech will be delivered by Dr. Kobena Hanson, Head-Knowledge and Learning, African Capacity Building Foundation, Zimbabwe on ‘Rethinking Institutional Leadership in a Globalized Era: Strategic Imperatives for Higher Education’.
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