RPCs propose Rs.35 per kg for plantations in new model
Sri Lanka’s Planters Association (PA) during a meeting with estate sector trade unions on Wednesday has proposed to offer Rs.35 per kg to encourage pluckers to increase productivity on the tea plantations. This came about since the Collective Bargaining agreement has been hanging in the balance for over one year since the tea estate owners have noted that profits had come down lately due to a crisis on trade in some of Sri Lanka’s key markets. Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs), represented by the PA, have come up with a proposal to provide employment to these workers and allow them to increase their own wages based on a new model that would ensure the tea pluckers can pluck as much they can per day to increase their earnings.
The model provides for workers to be paid Rs.720 per day (which is inclusive of the Rs.100 proposed by the government) for three days of the week, PA Chairman Roshan Rajadurai said. On the fourth day the workers will be functioning on a productivity based system whereby they would be paid Rs.35 per kg of tea plucked daily on these days. The RPCs would continue to provide all other welfare facilities for these workers on the estates and in about three years’ time the system should evolve into a revenue sharing model, Mr. Rajadurai noted. The system would ensure that workers would be able to obtain about 35 per cent of the tea sales average or prices offered at the tea auctions in about three years.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last week met heads of parent companies of the respective plantation companies and asked them to increase workers’ wages by Rs.100 per day. At present estate workers are paid Rs.620 and this will then be increased to Rs.720, Mr. Rajadurai said adding that this would be effective once the companies receive a loan from the state banks to do so. State banks have been asked for a loan by RPCs amounting to approximately Rs.800 million to pay the Rs. 100 increase per worker.