RPCs insist on linking wage hike to productivity; Planters promote revenue-share model

Regional plantation companies (RPCs) are insisting that the Government's proposal to increase the monthly wage of workers should be linked to a rise in productivity.

On January 14, the Government directed the RPCs to enter into negotiations with estate trade unions for a stipulated daily wage of Rs 1,000-- or Rs 25,000 a month--for workers. The increase was to take effect on March 1.

Seventeen rounds of talks were held between representatives of the 21 RPCs and others, including Government officials and trade unions. Then they stalled.

Issuing a media statement, the Planters’ Association (PA) of Ceylon said it had piloted various wage models, the most promising of which was the “revenue share model”. According to this model, estate workers are placed in charge of blocks of land and paid based on their harvest. The companies insist that such a model would “offer vastly greater flexibility, freedom and dignity” to employees.

“This would have been fundamentally empowering for RPC workers, who could then decide when they want to go into the fields, and work according to their own time, while balancing their obligations to family,” the statements says. “In instances where such models have been piloted, there are examples of RPC workers earning between Rs 40,000- Rs 80,000 in a single month.”

“Estate norms usually average out at 18kg or more, while plucking averages based on this ancient daily wage model are between 18- 21 kilos,” the PA said. “On estates where the revenue share models have been practised, workers have harvested an average of 30-35 kilos. But when traditional norm plucking has been undertaken, they have continuously averaged around 18kg.”

This is clear proof that earning capacity can be increased by changing the wage model away from the “plucking norm daily wage system”, it said.

The RPCs’ last proposal had called for a 2kg increase to the estate norm for tea and a 1kg increase in rubber, together with a return to a productivity and attendance- linked wage structure. This had been agreed to in 2016 by trade unions and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) on behalf of the RPCs but scrapped on the insistence of trade union leaders during protracted negotiations in 2018, the media release said.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said that, if the RPCs could not afford to pay the stipulated wage, they should then hand the e s t ates over to the Government.