{"id":57131,"date":"2016-07-29T22:20:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T04:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57131"},"modified":"2016-07-29T15:14:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T22:14:28","slug":"say-no-to-etca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/07\/29\/say-no-to-etca\/","title":{"rendered":"Say no to ETCA"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>By Niranjala Ariyawansha\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>President of the National Trade Unions Centre (NTUC) K.D. Lalkantha assured that every possible step would be taken to prevent the signing of the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India, as it is deemed highly unfavourable to Sri Lanka.<br \/>\nHe warned that in the event the agreement is signed, many Sri Lankans will be deprived of jobs and that salary rates will plummet.<br \/>\nNTUC distributed one million handbills on Thursday (27) opposite the Fort Railway Station to raise awareness among the public regarding the adverse consequences of ETCA.<\/p>\n<p>Lalkantha said at the event the government intends bringing investors to this country through ETCA and that the expectation of the investors is that the rupee will depreciate and salaries paid to the workers will be reduced.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Then the government will have to bring workers from India who are willing to work for lesser rates. Because of that a problem will arise regarding the security of jobs of workers in this country. However, the government, while being dishonest with civil organizations including trade unions that are against the agreement are bringing about suppression and attempting to somehow sign the agreement,&#8221; he alleged.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders of many trade unions including the National Electricity Workers&#8217; Association, Lanka Railway Employees&#8217; General Service Association, All Ceylon Bank Employees&#8217; Union, the Unemployed Graduates&#8217; Association and the All Ceylon Nurses&#8217; Union participated in the programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Niranjala Ariyawansha\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today President of the National Trade Unions Centre (NTUC) K.D. Lalkantha assured that every possible step would be taken to prevent the signing of the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India, as it is deemed highly unfavourable to Sri Lanka. He warned that in the event the agreement is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}