Tea industry workers: Productivity-based wage model urged

By MSV On Nov 18, 2020

COLOMBO: The Planters Association assured that Sri Lanka’s tea industry workers will be able to earn between Rs.40,000-50,000 monthly if a wage model linked to productivity is incorporated when the new collective agreement is signed in January 2021 determining worker wages.

The Planters’ Association of Ceylon made these comments, reported by The Island, at a virtual press conference titled, ‘Towards Sustainable Livelihood for Every Plantation Worker.’

“A productivity-based wage model will give the workers a self-managed entrepreneurial mindset and more dignity where good workers are duly rewarded and then we can also prevent them from migrating to other jobs in cities,” said Planters Association Ceylon spokesman Roshan Rajadurai.

“In the COVID-19 situation, plantation industry has not shed a single worker or cut their pay like in many other industries,” he added.

“We must make this resilience more meaningful to the RPCs, trade unions and our workers on an equal scale.

“We should all therefore work collaboratively for the betterment of the industry or otherwise we would all sink. If a favorable arrangement can be made where workers can earn Rs. 40,000-50,000, I don’t see why there should be any opposition to it from the trade unions,: said Rajadurai in The Island report.

“We can even exceed the rhetorical demands made by trade unions and some politicians that tea industry workers should be paid a daily wage of Rs. 1,000. They made these demands without accounting the output, revenue and other facilities provided to the workers who are resident on the estates and are assured of continuous work. We can ensure that if this model is introduced their earnings would go up to Rs. 40,000-50,000 a month, while also guaranteeing them 300-days work during the year,” the association said.

“But to do this, we all need to agree on a revenue model for generating financial income. We can pay higher wages only from the revenue,” said Bhathiya Bulumulla, chairman of the Planters Association of Ceylon.