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Collective Agreements Negotiated on Labour Standard Principles Narrows Inequality
The principles of ILO conventions have made huge contribution for fair distribution of income and wealth, since the founding of the unique tripartite institution in 1919; said Jayasri Priyalal, UNI Apro Director for Finance Sector Activities at a public lecture on “Benefits of Collective Agreements” organized by the Federation of Bank Officers of Sri Lanka (FBOSL) at the Bank of Ceylon Auditorium
He justified the argument, from the statistics collated by Thomas Picketty in his book; Capital in Twenty First Century.
French Economist Picketty highlights, that during the period 1920 to 1970; the huge income in-equality in France, Germany and Great Britain was brought under control. Situation has been identical in USA as well. There after the income inequality shot up with the advent of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalisation (LPG) era. Refer the Related File for the Detailed analysis.
Sharing his own experiences as a member of the negotiating team of the Ceylon Bank Employees' Union (CBEU) in early nineties; Priyalal emphasised that, If trade unions bargaining in good faith for the benefit of the employees and the banks; many options could be found for negotiated settlements realising benefits for employees. One such achievement was Provident Fund contribution rates for bank employees on the gross salary, were increased with retrospective effect from the date of last amendment of the EPF Act in 1988 as a part of negotiated settlement.
Pensioners Associations of State Owned Bank Employees in Sri Lanka celebrated the National Pensioners Day in Colombo on 8th October 2014. A Statement by the former Chairman of Bank of Ceylon Dr Nimal Sanderatne – Chairman of the Negotiating team representing the management of the banks, and the former President of Ceylon Bank Employees Union Mr T Rusiripala on the Pension Schemes in the banking Industry and their experiences of negotiations for the banks and the unions are given in the Related Files below for the benefit of the trade union leaders who are negotiating collective agreements.
