Doctors and development officers step up trade union action

Two groups of public sector employees have stepped up trade union action over unresolved demands. Doctors plan to protest in Colombo tomorrow (10th), while development officers across the island staged a sick-leave protest today (9th).

The Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) announced it would hold a protest outside Colombo National Hospital on 10 November, seeking solutions to salary and allowance problems and to the shortage of medical specialists. The union said it had repeatedly sought talks with the health ministry and officials but had received no adequate response.

The union says the cancellation of tax-concession vehicle import permits after the 2022 economic crisis, and higher taxes on doctors' income and work-related allowances, have added financial pressure. Under the 2025 public sector salary revision, a third of doctors' overtime and holiday allowances were suspended; the government said they would be restored when the economy improved, but that has not happened, the union alleges.

Fewer than 25,000 doctors serve under the health ministry, and the approved cadre has not been revised since 2015 even as services have expanded, the GMOA said, adding that this has increased workloads and hurt service quality. Meanwhile, Dhammika Munasinghe, general secretary of the United Development Officers' Union, said today's sick-leave protest would continue, as repeated demands had gone unanswered.