Lake House Struggle Betrayed In ‘Horikada’ Style: Racketeer Sabotages Collective Agreement
September 17, 2016
The man who took a bribe of Rs. 50,000 from former Lake House Chairman Nalin Ladduwahetty has now committed a great betrayal in ‘horikada‘ style, to sabotage the collective agreement secured by trade unions at the state run newspaper institution.
Dharmasiri Lankapeli, Secretary of the employees union of Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd (Lake House), has sabotaged the ‘Collective Agreement’ which ensured a Rs. 3000 salary hike for all permanent employees of the state run newspaper institution.
The collective agreement was a main demand of Lake House unions over the past few years and it was on hold, under the company’s previous chairman Bandula Padmakumara‘s tenure.
After long-drawn negotiations with the Lake House management, several trade unions forced the company’s new Chairman, Kavan Ratnayaka, into the collective agreement. Under the new arrangement, the Lake House management should give a salary increment of Rs. 3000, to all its permanent employees, over the next one and a half years.
The unions backed by the UNP and the SLFP signed the agreement. Lankapeli’s union, however, pulled out of the agreement, at the last moment, plunging other unions into an uneasy situation, Colombo Telegraph reliably learns.
Lankapeli, launching a protest opposite Lake House last week, exerted pressure on the company’s management to have a separate agreement with his union and pull out of the collective agreement.
“Lankapeli fears that other unions will take the credit for securing the collective agreement. He wants to push for an unrealistic salary demand and disrupt our collective union struggle. It also gives an opening to the Lake House management to delay the increment further as unions are not on the same page about the matter. This is a betrayal of our collective struggle,” members from the UNP and the SLFP backed unions told Colombo Telegraph.
They said Lankapeli’s act of sabotage has deprived 1600 Lake House workers of a salary increment of Rs. 3000 (within 1 year and four months) – a collective demand by Lake House unions for nearly 8 years.
“As our beloved Leftist leader Dr. Colvin R. de Silva once explained, Lankapeli is a ‘horikadaya’ in every sense of word. He has betrayed a collective union struggle for his own personal gains,” a prominent Lake House union leader told the Colombo Telegraph.
Although Lankapeli is not an employee at the Lake House, he holds a key position in the Lake House Employee’s Union. He worked as a platemaker attached to the Production Department at Lake House, for many years.
A man with a chequered history, Lankapeli got promoted as a journalist when Nalin Ladduwahetty functioned as the Lake House Chairman, under the UNP government in 2001. At that point, Bandula Padmakumara was the Director Editorial at the state-run newspaper company. Both Ladduwahetty and Padmakumara promoted Lankapeli as a journalist, violating all standard procedures at the Lake House.
