Work at most plantations in Kerala came to a standstill on Monday as workers began an indefinite strike demanding increase in wages and bonus, better healthcare facilities, etc. Workers of plantations of all crops — tea, coffee, rubber and cardamom — are taking part in the indefinite strike.
The call for the strike was given on Saturday jointly by various trade unions operating in the sector after a meeting of the Plantation labour Committee (PlC), the body authorised to take decisions on such matters, failed to find a settlement to the issue. The PlC will meet again on Tuesday to consider the matter.
The trade unions are demanding a hike in the daily wage of the workers to Rs500 from the present Rs232 but the plantation managements are refusing to accept this, citing a slump in production, fall in prices and other financial reasons. However, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said on Monday that he was expecting a solution to come up in Tuesday’s PlC meet.
Kanam Rajendran, State CPI secretary and trade union leader, claimed that 99 per cent of the total three lakh workers in the private and public sector plantations were on strike, adding that the trade unions would not compromise on the demand for wage hike. All leading TUs like CITU, AITUC, INTUC, BMS and other small unions are participating in the strike.
Ponbila Orumai, the informal collective of the thousands of woman tea estate workers of Munnar’s Kanan Devan Hill Plantations (KDHP) had declared that they would not cooperate with the strike called by the unions. However, reports from Munnar said that majority of the workers of the KDHP cooperated by staying away from work on Monday.
It was the Ponbila Orumai which had started the movement in the plantation sector for higher bonus and wages with its nine-day agitation which had paralysed Munnar earlier this month.
The woman estate workers had held the agitation without allowing trade unions to participate in it saying that the unions and their leaders had been betraying the workers so far.
While there were allegations that representatives of the trade unions had tried to prevent the woman workers from appearing for work in Munnar on Monday, some reports said that the Ponbila Orumai was showing signs of weakening as only 442 of the total 11,527 workers in the KDHP tea estates had reported for work.
The agitation led by Ponbila Orumai had ended on September 13 after the management, controlled by the Tatas, agreed to pay 20 per cent bonus to the workers instead of the ten per cent it had declared earlier. Even on Monday morning, leaders of the women’s collective had expressed the hope that some positive decision might come out of Tuesday’s PlC meeting.
Chief Minister Chandy said on Monday that the Government would do everything it could to end the strike. “It would not be good for the State if the strike continues. The Government will certainly do whatever it can. We expect some solution to come up in the PlC meet (of Tuesday),” he said.
On Monday, the strike affected almost all plantations in the two high-range districts of the State, Idukki and Wayanad. Also, workers struck work in the Government and private plantations of Nelliyampathy in Palakkad and the estates of the AVT company and Harrison Malayalam Plantations in Pathanamthitta.
In Wayanad, CITU activists blocked traffic along the Kozhikode-Mysore National Highway as part of the strike. Members of the different agitating unions took out a demonstration in Munnar town and held a public meeting at which leaders accused the Government of trying to create a split between the unions and workers.