Estate workers back to work as salary negotiations fail

With salary negotiations ending in a deadlock estate workers have had no option but to return to work following the ‘go slow’ action launched by trade unions. Meanwhile regional plantation companies have incurred a loss of over Rs. 850 million in production alone, the Sunday Times learns.

The Planters’ Association says the full impact of the goslow action would be felt next month.

The association’s chairman R. Rajadurai said the trade union action was ill timed. “As world tea prices continued to fall the local tea industry is on its knees. We are struggling to break even,” he said.

Mr. Rajadurai said that the tea industry was facing one of its worst ever crises in the industry’s 150 year history with 60 - 70 per cent of Sri Lanka’s tea market collapsing due to crises in West Asia and Ukraine.

The trade union action was ended as suddenly as it was instigated by the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC).

While Mr. Rajadurai claimed the workers started to report for work on their own because of the hardships they faced without a salary, the CWC maintained that the union called off the strike as it wanted to maintain peace in the area in view of upcoming elections.

The salary negotiations which take place every two years based on a collective agreement between the trade unions and the Employers’ Federation started three months back when the last agreement expired in March.

The demand, for a day’s wage to be increased to Rs. 1000, from the present all-inclusive salary of Rs. 620, still remains, CWC Former MP Muthu Sivalingam said.

Regional Plantation companies have refused to give the increase, claiming that a 45% salary increase was was not possible when the cost of production here was highest in the world and the industry performance was negative.

Plantation companies have presented a new salary formula where workers could earn the demanded wage only if they increased their productivity. However the unions have not agreed to the proposal. They say the maximum daily output of a worker was 18 to 20 kg of plucked tea because a majority of the estates had tea bushes that were more than 40 years old and had a low yield.

There have also been disagreements about the Rs. 1000 demand among the three main trade unions CWC, Lanka Jathika Estate Workers Union (LJEWU) and Joint Estate trade unions, who were involved in the negotiations. LJEWU General Secretary K. Velayudam, claimed they did not think the demand was reasonable but went along with the CWC ‘s demand.

The negotiations are scheduled to resume when the industry picks up in September, trade unions claimed.