The Island May 12, 2011, Deshapriya Rajapaksha
Prof. A. M. Navaratna-Bandara said in his article (The Island – May 12) that the university teachers resorted to trade union action which is one of the important fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution to any citizen of this country, namely, "freedom to form and join trade union".
No argument, but asking for increase of salaries from Rs 57,755.00 to Rs 140,000.00 cannot be any sane man’s right. They give examples from developed countries – what is the salary paid to an office cleaner in those countries and here? If every employee asks for similar salaries comparing his salary with his counterpart abroad, what will be the situation? At the same time we should not forget that our highly paid and highly qualified persons are sometimes employed in those countries as office cleaners.
Already university non-academics are on the war path and the JVP and UNP must be waiting till the Senior Professor gets his Rs 140,000.00 salary, to organise a general strike asking for similar salary increase to all.
Why not all these high salary hungry people migrate to greener pastures or at least join our Central Bank or the Parliament (to be a minister) without envying their salaries?
Deshapriya Rajapaksha
Battaramulla
