Tea workers plucked out of 150-year celebrations
A group, considered the “indispensable backbone of the thriving Sri Lankan tea industry,” by none other than the most important Prime Minister in the world, India’s Narendra Modi, has been left out of any involvement in the 150-year celebrations of an industry that they were born into.
Steeped in a colonial past that brought them to the island to reap its success for generations, estate workers have been left in the lurch with hardly anyone aware that it is now 150 years since they started work on the tea plantations.
“Workers are not involved in this and they don’t even know about these celebrations,” the main trade union representing the estate workers Ceylon Workers Congress President and MP Muthu Sivalingam said in an interview with the Business Times on Wednesday.
Estate workers today have come a long way since their forefathers, with some even graduating from the local universities.Mr. Sivalingam queried what the people would gain by these celebrations and noted that this is just a promotional event to push the product. But he also noted that it was commendable that the industry has remembered the importance of this industry.Commenting on the celebrations, Tea Commissioner Jayantha Edirisinghe said that there were a number of events scheduled including competitions for best tea plucker, factory owner and smallholder which are being worked out at present.
They would be advertised at a regional level on a district and sub district level to ensure the people are made aware of it, he explained.Increased awareness would be carried out in August when the tea exhibition would be opened for the public.
It was Business Times columnist Kussi Amma Sera who first raised the issue in a May 21, 2017 column titled “Dignity of the plantation worker”, saying, “In the past few months going through a lot of literature, events and even new coffee table books as Sri Lanka’s primary export commodity tea marks its 150th anniversary, there seems to be something missing in the celebrations: The worker!”
It asked: “…have workers and/or their representatives been invited to any of the celebrations this year apart from the ‘tokenism’ of a ‘best tea-plucker’ contest? Don’t they too deserve a place in the sun as the most important link in the tea industry? KAS suggested that “a 3-4 day holiday tour abroad for a representative group of workers sponsored by the state or the plantation industry might give these workers some dignity and not leave them completely out of the tea party.”