The Lanka Private Bus Owners' Association (LPBOA) today said that they would assign all their buses, including school and office services, tomorrow to facilitate the public, despite the scheduled Trade Union (TU) action.
LPBOA Chief Gemunu Wijerathne told the Daily Mirror that professional trade unions representing many sectors, including government, semi-government, private, and estates, have decided to implement a massive one-day strike tomorrow (March 1).
Even though all services are suspended for tomorrow, the public bus association has decided to operate all the buses as usual.
Even during the COVID pandemic, government employees received their full salary, whereas employees in the private sector and private bus service received half of their wages or no payment at all.
Therefore, it is illegal to organize protests that make people inconvenienced, he said.
Wijerathne also stated that 25% of the total fleet's lease payments are due, and the majority of the buses have been seized by leasing companies. We had a fleet of around 18,000 buses were in operation daily, but trimmed to 13,000 buses due to lease issues during COVID outbreak.
“We are the people who are affected most and the ones who want to protest for our losses, but the government sector employees are protesting while they get their monthly fixed payments, including their allowances,” he lamented. (Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)
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