Plantation worker wage increase :

No significant breakthrough

by P.Krishnaswamy

The third round of talks on revising the biennial Collective Agreement (CA) on wage increase to the plantation workers is scheduled for tomorrow, June 22, with no signs of any significant breakthrough on the rigid stand of the two negotiating sides - the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) and the three plantation trade unions representing the workers - according to informed sources.

The CA having expired on March 31, 2015 the first round of talks were held on April 24, 2015 and the second round on May 18 without making any headway on wage increase to the workers and reaching a stalemate, with the RPCs maintaining that the industry was not doing well with world tea prices declining and productivity costs ever increasing, making it impossible for them to offset.

The three trade unions that are at the negotiating table - the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC), the Lanka Jathika Estate Workers' Union (LJEWU) and Joint Plantation Trade Union Center (JPTUC) - demanded a revised wage increase of Rs.1000/= , an increase of Rs.380/- from the increase offered under the previous CA, inclusive of the basic wages, price share supplement and attendance incentive. The unions said that they were demanding the increase commensurate with the rising cost of living.

Chairman of the Planters' Association of Ceylon (PA) Roshan Rajadurai told the Sunday Observer that the tea price that was an average Rs.500/- in January 2014 has now dropped to Rs.350/- and, therefore, they were finding it difficult to meet the expenditure on workers' wages even under the last CA. While productivity is low, expenses on the workers' welfare and wages are much higher compared to other tea producing countries including Assam (India), Kenya and Indonesia, Rajadurai said.

They negotiatory process will go on and they would work out on possible ways of reaching a settlement, he said. General Secretary of the JPTUC S.Ramanathan told the Sunday Observer that price fluctuations and productivity issues have been there since thesigning of the CA in 1998 but wage increases were invariably offered takinginto account the cost of living obtaining at the time of signing the CA.

Workers of some estates in Hatton, Nuwara Eliya and Talawakele, the main export tea production hubs, have staged protest demonstrations and picketing demanding wage increase and the RPCs should come up with a settlement before the situation further aggravates, Ramanathan said. In the past the heads of government in power had intervened to bring about amicable settlements, he said.