Sri Lanka’s main plantation union demands decent wages, decent work on estates
The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), the largest estate worker union, is proposing the establishment of an estate village and the provision of decent wage and decent work on the plantations. Estate workers need to be given a right to land and property and live outside the plantations on a separate village of their own and at the next collective bargaining meeting a pay increase of upto Rs.1000 is being demanded, CWC International Affairs and Workers Education Vice President S. Arull Samy said in an interview with the Business Times on Tuesday.
Asked how plantation companies could afford to pay workers when prices are low in the international market, Mr. Samy noted that this was where the government needs to intervene. He explained that the government has an obligation and they should provide some relief to the workers and ensure that estate workers get the same increases given to workers in other sectors as proposed in the budget. The union noted that the proposal to increase private sector wages by Rs. 2,500 should be handed to these people as well.
In the meantime, CWC leader Armugan Thondaman has requested for a meeting with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss issues pertaining to the welfare of the workers and a pay hike. The union agrees that the plantation companies were unable to pay as a result of which the government should step in to provide for its people. Mr. Samy noted that as a union for quite some time their requests for the establishment of a village outside of the estates has fallen on deaf ears. He explained that since these people have been living together as a community they could continue to do so outside the plantations but on lands given to them making them owners of property.
At present the government plans to provide housing for the people but have not given them a deed for the said property except for a document that states that they have the right to live on this property, Mr. Samy pointed out. Further, as part of the demand for decent work he noted that as per the recently released study by Verite Research there were more estates on which workers were not looked after well and were therefore anaemic and were not given proper clothing to pluck tea. He also noted that tea estate workers were still referred to as “coolies” under the present plantation companies’ payroll. This was the manner in which they were identified when they were initially brought down to the country by the colonial masters during the British Raj.
The Verite Research mooted by the Express Newspapers titled “Tea Estate Worker Unions: Analysis for Improved Performance” called for a change in the current feudal structure on the estates to a more modernised system as already implemented on the small holder plantations.
This method would allow workers to join the labour force on the estates by living outside of the estates and not be maintained as “captive labour,” Mr. Samy stated. He also noted that their demand for a decent pay is also on the lines that the Rs.1,000 is required for a person to live a decent life.
Mr. Samy explained that yields on the estates had plunged due to poor chemicals being used and that the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) were below that of the crop produced in the smallholder factories. Mr. Samy also complained that though children of estate workers have progressed in education they were not provided clerical grade jobs in the tea companies and these positions were filled by recruiting from outside the plantations. A new government policy should be implemented to ensure that the worker’s welfare was given prominence; he asserted adding that proposals to establish industrial parks could be set up in proximity to the estates to ensure that young workers from these households could join in the workforce.