Nurses threaten strike on Dec.7

The Government Nursing Officers Association (GNOA) warned of another strike on December 7.

GNOA President Saman Rathnapriya said today that all GNOA members will keep away from work for an hour in an effort to win six of its demands including the rectification of salary anomalies, recruitments and promotions.

He said if the government failed to provide a solution to these demands within a week they will go ahead with a strike and would resort to severe trade union action without prior notice if the concerns of nursing sector were not resolved soon.

“We engaged in a token strike on November 15 but we did not get a response from the Health Ministry though two weeks had lapsed since then. We decided to limit the trade union action for one hour because we do not want to inconvenience the patients. If we are forced to launch severe trade union action, the government will have to take the responsibility for its fall out on the patients” he said. (Sarasi Paranamanna)