Lanka Sugar Company (Pvt) Ltd says it lost Rs. 250 million through the temporary closure of the Sevanagala Sugar Factory following strike action by workers, NewsFirst reported.
It is the first figure the company has put on the shutdown, which began on 29 August.
Production resumed on September 5
Chairman Athula Kumara said discussions were held with employees at the Ministry of Industries, and that production activities at the factory resumed on 5 September after an agreement was reached to address the workers’ concerns.
That closes a standoff that had run for more than a week. Workers had gone into the talks with four demands — confirmation of the manpower requirement with prompt payment of salaries and allowances, 5kg of subsidised sugar per employee each month at Rs. 80 a kilogram, reinstatement of previous incentives, and uninterrupted health insurance and scholarship benefits. NewsFirst did not say which of the four were settled, or on what terms.
A different account of what happened on August 25
The chairman’s description of the dispute’s origin does not match the account given when the plant shut. He said employees had reported for duty from August 25, but that factory operations were disrupted because production activities did not resume properly.
When the factory closed indefinitely on 29 August, management’s account was that operations were disrupted from 25 August when a group of employees withdrew from their duties. Reporting for duty and withdrawing from duties are materially different characterisations of the same date, and no outlet has reconciled them.
Management said at the time that the closure was intended to limit losses from paying salaries and overtime with no output. Essential sections — the vacuum pans, crystallisers, centrifuges, cane yard, power plant, security and cultivation units among them — kept running through the shutdown, while administrative and service sections closed.
Not reported
NewsFirst did not say how the Rs. 250 million figure was calculated or what period it covers, whether it includes unharvested or spoiled cane, or what the agreement with employees contains. It gave no date for the Ministry of Industries discussions, did not say whether Industry Minister Sunil Handunnetti attended, and did not report any comment from the workers or their unions. No second newsroom had carried the loss figure at the time of writing.
Note on spelling: NewsFirst writes “Sewanagala”; this desk uses the more common archive form, Sevanagala.
