📈 Labour Unions Table Policy-Focused 2026 Budget Reforms

A consortium of 13 independent labour unions affiliated with the NLAC has jointly submitted policy-driven proposals for the 2026 Budget, marking a significant break from traditional demands for salary increments. • The focus is on labour policy reform, institutional accountability, and workers' rights, not financial benefits or handouts. • Governance & SOEs: • Demand forensic audits into major State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) (e.g., State banks, CEB, CPC, SLT) and favour restructuring over privatisation to maintain essential public services and public ownership. • Insist on retaining the management of the EPF with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) to ensure worker trust and fund security. • Labour Protection & Social Security: • Call for the long-delayed Workers' Charter to be implemented and for labour law reforms to uniformly strengthen worker protections across all regions (e.g., no separate laws for Colombo Port City). • Propose a new social security scheme for gig workers (app-based/task-based), funded by a nominal Rs. 1 levy per transaction. • Recommend a contributory unemployment benefit plan for the private sector and ratification of key ILO Conventions on harassment. • Estate & Tax Reforms: • Highlight the need to improve estate worker welfare by settling unpaid provident fund dues, raising wages, upgrading housing, and granting 10 perches of land per worker. • Advocate for replacing indirect taxes on essential goods with progressive taxation on high incomes.