SriLankan Airlines signs Collective Agreement with Malaysian staff

SriLankan Airlines signed a 3-year Collective Agreement with its staff in Malaysia, the latest in a series of agreements with its employee unions that are intended to provide mutually beneficial conditions with regard to salaries and benefits.

Other employee unions that SriLankan Airlines has Collective Agreements with are the Sri Lanka Nidahas Sevaka Sangamaya (SLNSS), the Pilot's Guild of Sri Lanka, the Flight Attendants' Union (FAU), the SriLankan Airlines Aircraft Technicians Association (SAATA), the Association of Licensed Aircraft Engineers, and the Manual & Mercantile Workers Union in Singapore.

The agreement was signed in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, on September 23 on behalf of the management by Ali Kamil, Manager Human Resources and Prasanna Subasinghe, Country Manager Malaysia, both of whom represented SriLankan Airlines in the negotiations.

The employees were represented by Mohamed Zen Bin Baharuddin, Vice President of the Foreign Airlines Employees Union (FAEU) Peninsular Malaysia, and Mervin David, Shop Steward, FAEU, both of whom were signatories to the agreement. We are pleased that we were in a position to conclude discussions amicably, through a series of cordial negotiations.

We apprised the FAEU representatives of the business situation of the Company and the issues that are adversely affecting the global airline industry, said Sunil Dissanayake, Head of Human Resources.

The agreement, which covers the airlines 22 staff in Malaysia, extended a similar agreement that had been in effect for the previous three years.The agreement which is effective from 1st December 2004 up to November 31, 2007 included mutually agreed upon increments to basic salaries, in keeping with the Consumer Product Index.

Other areas such as staff benefits were already covered in the previous agreement, and were unchanged, said Ali Kamil, Manager Human Resources.