Trade unions of the Ceylon Electricity Board, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority plan to join hands shortly to demand a 40 per cent salary increase.

CEB’s Joint Trade Union Alliance Convener Ananda Nimalaratne told The Island on Wednesday that their increment – given once in three years – had been due in January this year.

"In our case even though initially we said 40 per cent, the Salary Cadres Committee said 33 per cent and we decided to stick to it but later we found the increase was only 25 per cent," he said.

He said that Power and Energy Minister W. D. J. Seneviratne assured them that they would be given the increment shortly, but now the matter was with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Treasury.

Nimalaratne said that they were fighting for their demand purely as trade unions. There was no room for political agendas and if the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna backed unions were interested they could join them but without political motives.

Though they were planning to take up the issue after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, now they would go for discussions and wait till the completion of the forthcoming Western Provincial Council elections.

In 2000 CEB employees got an increment of 40 per cent, in 2003 an increment of 23 per cent and 33 per cent in 2006.

Senior officials at the Power and Energy Ministry said that they were doing their best to grant the increment.