Saboteurs will be dealt with - Railway GM

Rasika Somarathna

COLOMBO:The on-going railway strike by certain Railway Unions crippling train services during the last few days is likely to see an end with the General Manager of the Railways K. A. Pemasiri obtaining a restraining order from the District Court of Colombo against the saboteurs in the trade unions.

This was revealed by Pemasiri at a press conference held yesterday at the Railways headquarters.

According to the GM the situation had been brought under control by yesterday. Already about 90 per cent of Trains are back on track. The GM also said the special trains which the Department was planning to deploy for the Poson festival would be in operation as scheduled.

A series of strikes broke out last week with the work to rule campaign by Signal officers demanding the transfer of the chief engineer and later a section of the Maintenance and Technical Department started another strike demanding the removal of a foreman. According to the GM these two demands were very unreasonable since proper inquiries had to be conducted before any action is taken. At that moment they had initiated an inquiry and he had conveyed this to the trade unions.

According to Pemasiri some undesirable elements were involved in sabotage which forced his hand to seek the court order considering the inconvenience caused to the commuters because of what he claimed was an unreasonable strike noting that around 300,000 passengers use trains as their daily mode of transport.

The GM added that he intended to call the trade unions for another round of talks.

"If these elements do engage in further sabotage we would be compelled to take stern action the GM said adding that he had fully briefed the Minister about the current situation.