April 16: The business community of Nepal has taken initiative to find ways for addressing the issue of workers’ payment in the context of coronavirus pandemic causing disruption to all economic activities.

Participants of a meeting organised by the Employers Council of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) agreed to decide on the payment of workers within a week and hold discussion in this regard with the government and the respective trade unions. Confederation of Nepalese Industries, Nepal Chamber of Commerce and Hotel Association of Nepal had participated in the meeting held on Tuesday.

FNCCI President Bhavani Rana informed about the latest steps taken by the umbrella body to address the problems of paying the workers’ wages during a video conference organised by the Society of Economic Journalists of Nepal ( SEJON) on Wednesday.

According to General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT), there are altogether 3 to 3.5 million workers in the formal and informal sectors in the country. Hotel Association of Nepal informed that around 1 million people are employed by the hotel industry alone.

Operation of most of the industries in the country have come to a standstill due to the fear of coronavirus while the hotel and tourism industries and the aviation sector have been badly affected by the pandemic.

This has raised the question of pay-cuts by the employers. The domestic airline companies have already decided to hold the salary of their staffers, instructing some employees to take unpaid leave. Some have decided to pay half the salary during lockdown.

The umbrella bodies of the private sector are in talks with the trade unions regarding the salary of the workers.

Chairman of GEFONT Binod Shrestha informed New Business Age that they held discussions with the employers’ umbrella bodies a few days ago regarding payment of the workers. For the time being, both sides have agreed that the salary would be distributed in such a way that both the workers and the employers would not be overburdened by the decision, said Shrestha.

During the meeting, some stakeholders reportedly expressed their inability to pay the workers from this month onward.

Tuesday’s meeting also decided to form a committee comprising of vice presidents of all the three umbrella bodies to prepare a report and present it to the government, informed Chandra Dhakal, vice president of FNCCI.

Meanwhile, HAN has clearly stated that the hotel industry alone cannot pay the salaries of the staffers and the government must support them.

FNCCI on the other hand has demanded concessional loan for the sectors affected by coronavirus to pay the workers.

CNI President Satish Kumar Moore said that although the government has assured the industrial sector of facilitating them to restart their works, the employees are not willing to join work fearing the disease. He said that the government must now collaborate in providing salary to the workers who are willing to join office and not the others.

 FNCCI President Bhavani Rana said that the private sector is at present concerned about sustaining their business rather than making profit. She said that all the sectors have joined hands to seek support from the government to bring the economy back on track.

Stakeholders said that the government should not delay in bringing relief packages. They also opined that “all industries should not be kept in the same basket”. The government should support the industries and enterprises as per the nature of their business, they said.