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Tea workers suffer a blow from the virus
Plantation workers struggle to buy basic essentials
Plantation workers, most of whom are tea-pluckers in the central hills, are appealing for government financial and food relief saying they are among the worst affected from the coronavirus epidemic and are struggling to buy basic essentials because they do not have enough money.
They say they expect the Samurdhi allowance and dry rations relief, and want their political representatives and trade unions to raise these issues.
Plantation workers claim that many Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) continue to make them work even during curfew hours without measures to protect them from the virus.
The workers say their families are feeling greater burdens as those who worked in cities have returned home because there is no work.
Since the plantation workers are categorised as those who draw a stable salary through the collective wage agreement, which offered them Rs 1,000 as a minimum from March 1 under a cabinet decision, they are not included as beneficiaries in the recently announced Samurdhi relief package of Rs 5,000. Their gross living wage a month is estimated by researchers at Rs. 23,785.
Plantation companies and workers agreed to a collective wage deal in February 2019 to raise the daily wage to Rs 750.
Azaku Muniyaandi Pirakash, a community leader at Great Western tea plantation estate, Talawakelle told the Sunday Times it is still not clear whether they would be included in the recent Samurdhi relief package of Rs 5000 for those affected, with no income due to the Coronavirus situation.
“Our Grama Niadhari told us that even a family of 10 persons in which one person is working in an estate will not be qualified to become a beneficiary for this programme. The government should consider our plight, we are left without any income,” Mr Pirakash said.