Treasury Sec. gives RPCs options to hike estate wages
Treasury Secretary Sajith Attygalle has asked plantation companies to pick one of the options submitted by him to ensure that estate workers are paid Rs.1000 as demanded by them.
Mr. Attygalle is said to have summoned Employers Federation Corporation (EFC) Director General Kanishka Weerasinghe and given a number of suggestions on how to reach the Rs.1000 pay hike as demanded by the workers, Ceylon Workers Congress official Arul Swami told the Business Times on Friday.
The Treasury Secretary had informed the union’s Chairman and the current Hill Country New Villages, Infrastructure and Community Development Minister Arumugam Thondaman about the proposals given to the EFC to increase the wages upto Rs.1000.
In turn the EFC has agreed to submit their proposal on Monday and thereafter Mr. Attygalle is expected to meet with the unions on the proposed wage hike.
Mr. Attygalle has pointed out that the wages should be more than Rs.600 and has given suggestion on how to reach that amount of Rs.1000.
CWC official Swami noted that they as a union was confident that with government intervention they were likely to achieve the desired result of giving their workers a wage hike of Rs.1000.
Newly appointed Plantations State Minister Suresh Vadivel had a meeting with the private sector at the ministry on November 1 where Minister Thondaman was also present.
Even at this meeting it was observed that the union leaders had taken up the issue of discussing matters pertaining to the new revenue share model of payment at the next agreement.
But RPCs note that though the companies would want to move out of the 150 year old wage model the unions did not want to accept the new system.
At the last meeting of RPCs with the Treasury Secretary held last Monday the companies had explained the proposal put forward to the workers and insisted on their inability to pay a higher wage when tea prices were down and cost of production high.
“The current cost of production is at Rs.630 whereas the sale price of tea is Rs.575, which is beyond our control,” said Hayleys Plantations Managing Director Roshan Rajadurai, who is also the current Chairman of the EFC Plantation Services Group.
He noted that they didn’t intend signing something that they could not afford to pay.
Mr. Attygalle had at the Monday meeting also insisted on the companies to go back and re-consider the proposal to provide workers with a Rs.1000 wage hike.
Unions have proposed to the Treasury that if the companies were unwilling to pay the Rs.1000 then the government should consider paying the balance amount to the workers to provide them with the wage hike demanded.