Sri Lankan leftist minister to complain to President about attack on estate workers' protest

Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara, the leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF), a coalition party of the Sri Lankan government, has said that he would complain to the President of the attack on the estate sector protest staged to demand a wage hike. The Minister was quoted in the local media as saying that he would inform the President and request that necessary action be taken against the police officers who had disrupted the protest organized by the Plantation Trade Union Federation (PTUF) in Kotagala, in the Nuwara Eliya district. He has also alleged that Leader of the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) and Minister Arumugam Thondaman's thugs had attacked Leader of the Democratic People's Front (DPF) Mano Ganeshan during the protest. Nanayakkara has said that the PTUF had organized a protest demanding a daily wage of Rs 550 for plantation workers. "The protest was organized to express the opposition of the PTUF to the agreement signed between the employers, the CWC and UNP affiliated trade unions, regarding the salary increment for estate workers. We are demanding a daily wage of Rs 550 for estate workers, whereas Thondaman has agreed to a daily wage of Rs 450," the Minister has added. Nanayakkara had further noted that the protests would not stop until the estate workers are granted a salary hike.