Labour Dept. should review existing legislations: ILO

Issuing a Technical Memorandum on Sri Lanka’s labour administration system, the International Labour Organization (ILO) had recommended that the Labour Department should review existing legislation and the existing protection system to extend labour protection to the informal economy to ensure protection of all workers. The Technical Memorandum had been issued by the International Labour Office in Geneva.

It had recommended that under the Labour Secretary/Commissioner General of Labour, a tripartite plus committee be created to ensure consultations between the social partners, other inspecting agencies outside the Ministry of Labour including private voluntary initiatives and the Department of La- bour, on all issues within the purview of labour inspections.

The mission further recommended of paying attention to status, conditions of service and qualifications of labour inspectors.

It has recommended reviewing the entry qualifications of new inspectors and recruiting more university graduates to the inspectorate, the placing labour inspectors on par with Tax officers and Customs officers and to regain the lost ground in the last pay revision by the Salaries and Cardre Commission. The mission observed that the Ministry needed

The mission observed that the Ministry needed to take steps to emphasize the important of labour inspectors in advancing “Decent Work It has recommended placing labour inspectors on par with Tax officers and Customs officers and to regain the lost ground in the last pay revision by the Salaries and Cardre Commission

to take steps to emphasize the important of labour inspectors in advancing “Decent Work”.

While the mission highly appreciating the recent efforts of the government to increase the number of inspectors, it strongly recommended that the total number of staff further increased in near future to cope with challenges related to the growing economy and large informal sector.

The Mission had recommended that a high level Technical Committee be appointed to re-examine the salary scales of labour inspectors with the purpose of upgrading the existing salary scale taking into account their specific function of labour law enforcement.