Tension prevailed in Kerala’s tea country Munnar on Wednesday after members of trade unions, irked by the attention the stir of woman tea estate workers were getting, pelted stones at the women and mediamen even as the plantations of the State remained paralysed for the third consecutive day due to the workers’ indefinite strike demanding a hike in daily wages from the present `232 to `500.
The joint panel of trade unions intensified the strike on Wednesday after a meeting of the Plantation labour Committee (PlC) failed to reach a consensus on the issue of hiking the wages with the plantation managements refusing to make any proposals and the Government showing reluctance to authoritatively intervene in the issue.
Women from Ponbila Orumai, an informal collective of Munnar’s woman tea estate workers of Tamil origin which had spearheaded a successful all-woman agitation in early September demanding bonus hike, joined the strike on Wednesday. They had not struck work on the first two days of the strike.
“We have now decided to strike work because the Government has betrayed us. The Chief Minister had promised us to settle the issue in Tuesday’s PlC meeting but that settlement has not come. We are doing the strike on our own and we have nothing to do with the trade unions,” said Gomathi Augustine, one of the Ponbila Orumai leaders.
On Wednesday morning, there were allegations that the trade unions and the Government were trying to weaken the Ponbila Orumai.