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• Health sector strike to resume on 01 February

Health sector unions would resume their strike on 01 February, President of the Joint Council for Professions of Supplementary Medicine, Ravi Kumudesh said.He said the decision had been taken by representatives of 72 unions that met on Thursday.They launched a strike recently against the government’s decision to only increase Disturbance, Availability, and Transport (DAT) allowance of doctors only.The strike had been suspended on Wednesday morning because they wanted to give some time for the President to solve the problems his Cabinet proposal had created. “ But if the President to solve our problems, we will take action. We have also decided to hold a countrywide protest on 23 January against those who created the recent crisis in health sector,”Kumudesh said.

• University non-academic workers staged token strike

The non-academic staff of all 17 state universities held a token strike yesterday against incresaing the salaries of only one category of individuals in the higher education sector.The study allowance for university academic was increased by 25 present earlier this month. 34 unions in the university sector had joined the strike,University Executive Officer’s Association (UEOA), General Secretary, Sampath Udayange said.He said that a salary anomaly had been created in 2016, and all unions in the university sector had been trying to resolve it for years.

“We have no objections to university academic receiving 25 present increase in their study allowance. We just want the Monthly Compensatory Allowance (MCA) to be increased by 25 percent too,” he said.K.A.L. Richman, Joint Secretary of the Inter University Service Trade Union,said the University Grants Commission staff too were on strike.

“Everyone, from the labourers to engineers attached to universities, are on strike. The university academic deserve an increase study allowance increases. Usually, when the study allowance increases, the MCA also increases. It didn’t happen this time,” he said.