The JVP-led Inter Company Employees (ICEU) launched its campaign last Friday to collect signatures to a petition aimed at forcing the government to increase public and private sector salaries by Rs. 5000. The first stage of collecting signatures from private sector employees commenced on Friday at Pannipitiya. The ICEU expect to collect 6.5 million signatures, its President Wasantha Samarasinghe said.

He said that the Government had accepted that a normal family needs a salary of Rs 31,000 a month to exist. But, the minimum wage of a public sector worker was Rs 11,730 while it was Rs 5,000 in the private sector. The minimum daily wage of an estate sector worker is Rs 290. The Cost of Living index was at 4,304 when this Government came to power and on June 1st this year it had risen to 6734.

"Thus, it is clear that workers deserve a pay hike. We had been engaged in talks, then resorted to union actions such as poster and leaflet campaigns and then we sent written requests, demands and warnings to all relevant offices including the President’s but the Government keeps on dodging the issue. Finally we launched a one-day strike on July 10. But, the government is still silent on the issue. This has forced us to take a decision to step up our campaign with a three-day strike," Samarasinghe said.

Meanwhile, the National Trade Union Center (NTUC), in a letter to the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, warned the government that they would definitely cripple both private and public sectors if the government does not allocate funds to increase salaries in the next budget.