Trade unions to initiate talks on Biennial CA wage increase

by P. Krishnaswamy

On expiry, on March 31, of the biennial Collective Agreement (CA) on wage increase to plantation workers, the Unions concerned will initiate talks for a fresh agreement and other unions should desist from complicating this process, President of the CWC and Deputy Minister, Muthu Sivalingam told the Sunday Observer. In the past too the CWC, with the other signatory unions, had successfully negotiated with the plantation companies and got increased wages to the workers much after the expiry of the CA, but with retrospective effect, he said.

The CWC, with the longest trade union history, knows its responsibility by the workers and would begin talks with the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) at the right time. Efforts of other Unions, with their own agenda, to mislead the workers will have dire consequences on the plantation community and also on the industry, Sivalingam said.

S. Ramanathan, President of the Joint Plantation Trade Union Centre (JPTUC), also a signatory union - the CA, told the Sunday Observer that they have already written to the Employers' Federation of Ceylon (EFC) seeking date for talks for signing a fresh CA. They have rejected the position of the EFC that they would start talks only after a fresh CA on salary increase to the estate staff is signed in October this year.

The Ceylon Estate Staffs' Union (CESU) that represents the clerical staff on estates has gone before an Arbitration seeking remedy for the lower salary of some categories of the estate staff whose remunerations are lower than that of the workers. Ramanathan said that the staff salary issue has no bearing on the estate workers wages. The union also totally rejected RPCs claims that estates were running at a loss.

The other signatory union to the CA is the UNP's Lanka Jathika Estate Workers' Union (LJEWU) led by former parliamentarian K. Velautham.