FUTA on positive govt. response

Daily Mirror, 22/08/2012 After a meeting with Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa on Tuesday the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) said that there was a possibility that the ongoing countrywide university strike would be called off next week. FUTA President Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri said that discussions with Minister Rajapaksa had been successful and that both parties had begun developing a framework to implement the proposals made by university teachers unions. “There has been a great amount of progress and we are in the process of creating an agreement with the government. We have discussed the foundation of our plans and things are looking positive. There is a chance that we would be able to call off the university teachers strike soon,” Dewasiri said. He said however that it was still too soon to tell if the strike would be called off next week and refused to comment on the details of the discussions saying that it could be detrimental to the positive turn taken during the recent negotiations. (Olindhi Jayasundere)