-By Sunil Gamini Jayalathge
(Lanka-e-News -21.Aug.2025, 11.00 PM) On 17 August, postal and telecommunications trade unions launched an island-wide strike, withdrawing from service from 4 p.m. onwards. By midnight, the action extended across all 653 post offices and 70 administrative centres, bringing 18,000 postal workers out on strike.
The unions cite 19 grievances, among them the withdrawal of overtime payments and the compulsory use of fingerprint attendance machines. But whatever their complaints, the effects are being felt not by ministers or officials, but by the public. Over 1.5 million letters now lie undelivered in post offices across the country.
The government has made its position clear. Cabinet spokesman Minister Nalin de Jayatissa announced this week that there would be no reversal on either biometric attendance or overtime arrangements. Fingerprint systems are mandatory across all public institutions, grounded firmly in law: from the ICT Act of 2003 and the Electronic Transactions Act of 2006, to the Data Protection Act of 2022. Circulars issued by the Ministry of Public Administration in 2017, and reinforced again in May 2023, make their use compulsory for confirming attendance. Even the Ministry of Health has insisted upon them for senior administrators.
The issue, then, is not whether the postal unions like fingerprinting machines. It is whether they are entitled to defy the law, deprive citizens of essential services, and still claim the mantle of justice.
The public, who fund the state through taxes, have a right to these services. The state institutions have a corresponding duty to provide them. When that duty is deliberately obstructed, the matter ceases to be a labour dispute. It becomes a violation of the public’s human rights.
The law offers recourse. Citizens can petition the courts against those who obstruct their rights. Strikes that hold the people hostage, under the guise of opposing lawful biometric systems, invite exactly such legal action.
No union, no official, no government servant has the authority to deny the people their rights. That is the true principle at stake. And it is high time the public began to assert it in the courts of law.
-By Sunil Gamini Jayalathge
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by (2025-08-21 17:34:18)
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