Railways station masters call off trade union action

Sri Lanka Railways Station Masters’ Union has decided to call off their 48-hour trade union action after discussions with officials of the National Transport Commission. 

Railway station masters had launched a 48-hour union action from 6pm yesterday (24), in protest of the train fares revision, and had refrained from issuing normal railway tickets.

Accordingly, a special discussion was held today (24) between representatives of the Sri Lanka Railway Station Masters’ Union, the railway authorities and the National Transport Commission with regard to the union action and their demands.

The Railway Department had announced that the increased train fares would be effective from yesterday, however the station masters, in response, had said they would continue to sell tickets at the old fare.

In a letter directed to the General Manager of Railways, the Station Masters’ Union had said, the Railway Department has continuously disregarded the requests to rectify the discrepancies in railway fare revision identified by them.

According to the statement, they had pointed out the following issues:

• The station masters were not given adequate time to look into the accuracy of the methodology used for railway fare revision.

• The AF174 application, which is displayed to the passengers to inform them of the railway fare revision, has not been issued to the train stations.

• Although, the revision of ticket fares should be displayed at train stations in all Sinhala, Tamil and English, pursuant to the official language policy of the country, it has been displayed only in the English language.

• The tickets issued for normal trains are higher in price than that of the intercity trains.

• Although it was announced that the ticket fares went up by 60%, for some destinations, the price of a ticket has been increased by 120%.

• The station masters, who are engaged in issuing tickets to the passengers, have not been informed or called for a discussion on the ticket fare revision.