Munnar: Workers and managements in the plantations sector in Kerala are busy bleeding each other. And the mighty referee, the state, is watching the fun.
It is almost 45 days since the workers have taken to ‘go slow’, which was followed by a bonus strike and then a general strike for higher daily wages and annual bonus.
While the employees have lost their wages on the striking days, the managements estimate that they would lose about Rs 160 crore thanks to the strike at the peak harvesting season.
The government, on its part, is taking its sweet time to convene the statutory Plantations Labour Committee, and that too, with no concrete suggestions.
“Several workers have got zero payment for September after the deductions,” said Lissy Sunny, leader of the Ponpilai Orumai women’s movement in Kanan Devan Hills Plantations (KDHP) company.
“We are not even able to pay the hostel fee of our children.” The total monthly expenditure for a child studying in a school in Theni or Bodinaikanoor comes to be between Rs 1,800 and Rs 4,000 a month.
“Some have started pledging their gold ornaments to ensure that the children are not expelled from their schools and colleges,” she said.
Things are no better in the nearby Suryanelli estate of Harrison Malayalam plantations. “We have not yet received our payments for September, which will anyway be a meager sum as we have been on a strike for the last 28 days,” said Suppamma, a worker.
“But we shall not withdraw our strike without the management meeting our demand: Rs 500 as daily wage and 20 per cent bonus.” APK president C Vinayaraghavan said the total loss in the rubber and tea sector alone would be about Rs 160 crore, as it would lose two months harvest, especially in the tea sector.
“Even if the strike ends tomorrow, we will have to cut the leaves and wait for the fresh shoots,” he told Deccan Chronicle. “And by then, frost would set in in most plantations. We have no idea how to meet the expenses.”
The plantations can afford to offer only reasonable hike, that too in a telescopic manner spread across three years, he said.
The government has done precious little to settle the dispute. That it has taken almost a week between two PLC meets shows its inability to measure the desperation of both the warring factions in one of the labour-intensive sectors of the State’s economy.
