Future of tea lies in the hands of the workers, plantation managers say
A marginal increase of at least 2 kg in the daily plucking average of each tea plucker can significantly boost Sri Lanka’s entire plantation industry and benefit all stakeholders by bringing down the skyrocketing unit cost of production of tea by nearly seven per cent, the Planters’ Association (PA) of Ceylon said this week.
Thus, it said, sustainability of the sector and the livelihoods of the plantation communities lie in the hands of the workers and the unions.
The statement came a few days before the Koslanda tragedy where torrential rains on Tuesday led to several landslides burying over 60 houses at a tea plantation and leaving several dead.
The PA, noting that at approxi- mately Rs. 460 per kg, Sri Lanka’s unit production cost of tea is the highest in the world and the country’s unit labour cost in itself is higher than the total unit cost of production of some of its competitors, estimates that a 2kg increase in the daily plucking average of tea of each worker can bring down unit cost of production by Rs. 30 or 6.5 per cent. Such a development can boost the Regional Plantation Companies’ (RPCs) total revenue and mitigate the unsustainably high costs they are grappling with at present, the association said in a media release.
The RPC estates are compelled to offer 300 days of work per annum, irrespective of the daily output levels of the workers or the reduced cropping conditions in the fields as a result of erratic and changing weather conditions that are not uniform throughout the year. During the lean cropping months, the RPC estates have paid full daily wages to the workers although their averages are about 50 per cent of the expected averages and during high cropping periods, workers are paid extra for any output harvested above the norm, the PA said.
The RPCs have ploughed back earnings to the plantation sector, making substantial capital investments since privatisation. They are investing significantly in further improving free healthcare, accommodation and other facilities provided to workers in addition to wages. “Productivity improvements that increase the viability and sustainability of the estates, which provide livelihoods and employment for the workers would thus be a win-win situation, enabling workers themselves to reap substantial dividends,” the association noted. Productivity improvements also serve a dire need, especially following the unprecedented fall in the global rubber prices to record lows below even the cost of production, resulting in tea – which too is facing turmoil in major export markets – being the only major source of income for most plantation companies, it cautioned.
Since labour costs excluding salaries of managers, administrative staff on the estates etc. account for between 67 to 70 per cent of the total cost of production of local planta- tion companies and as the country has the lowest output per plucker in comparison with its competitors India and Kenya, an incremental increase is highly achievable even af- ter making allowance for lower land productivity. This is especially true in the case of male pluckers (who represent around 20 per cent of the workforce engaged in harvesting) whose productivity is woefully low – at the maximum 60 to 70 per cent of that of their female counterparts. This is in stark contrast to competitor countries like Kenya in which the plucking average of male workers is substantially greater than that of females, the association points out.The request by the Planters’ Association comes in the backdrop of volatility in the prime markets for Ceylon Tea – the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine – contributing 70 per cent of total value and a massive crash in rubber prices to one of the lowest levels in recent history.