The unity and determination shown by the thousands of poverty-stricken woman workers of Kerala’s Munnar tea plantations in keeping the trade unions out of their epic nine-day strike demanding higher bonus and better wages have forced the TUs and their parent political parties to do some serious introspection. The situation has also forced the TUs and parties to start efforts to win back the trust of the workers.
The efforts of the trade unions to correct the mistakes they committed in handling the issues of the workers and to recapture their confidence are also prompted by the possibility that the workers in the “Ponbila Orumai” (Women’s Unity in Tamil), which was behind the spirited agitation in Munnar, may soon decide to constitute a separate trade union.
The women workers had launched their agitation for better bonus and wages on their own after their cries before the trade unions had gone futile. As the agitation picked up momentum, political and TU leaders tried to associate with it but the women forcefully sent them back when they came to pledge solidarity.
Almost all trade unions working in the Munnar plantations held general body meetings the other day to take stock of the situation and came to the decision that they could not afford to antagonise the workers anymore by being insensitive to the problems they were facing. Harsh criticisms were leveled at the local leaderships of the trade unions in these meetings.
Fearing alienation from the workers, the general body meeting of the AITUC of the CPI, the major trade union in the Kanan Devan Hill Plantations ltd of Munnar, decided to increase women’s representation in its committees. As part of this, AITUC will fill 50 percent of the posts of office-bearers of its Devikulam Estate Workers’ Union with women workers.
The union, whose leaders are facing charges of conniving with the management, will now remove 13 of the 26 male office-bearers of its union in the KDHP company and fill those vacancies with women. The meeting also decided to include five women each in the 11-member committees of the union in all the 87 divisions in the Munnar tea plantation.
The AITUC has also decided to intensify its public relations activities among the workers. The union is considering instructing its leaders to visit the homes of workers on a regular basis to listen to their woes directly. “There have been mistakes on our part. We know how to correct those mistakes. We are for and with the workers,” said a top union leader.
The CPI(M), whose trade union wing CITU has a big presence in the Munnar plantations, also has admitted that the party and its TU had failed in properly judging the situation and gauging the depth of the workers’ anger. The party’s State committee has directed the Munnar district committee to examine these failures in detail.
State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan the other day openly expressed his party’s concern that non-political workers’ unions could emerge when political parties and trade unions failed to take up the issues of workers in the required manner, adding that the Munnar agitation reminded the party that it should intervene in situations where workers were being exploited.
Meanwhile, the first-ever meeting of Ponbila Orumai held the other day in Munnar decided to take a decision on constituting a trade union of its own after the meeting of the Plantation labour Committee (PlC) on September 26. The PlC meeting is to decide on the women’s demand for hiking their daily wages from the present Rs232 to Rs500.
“We are not ready for any compromise on the demand for the wage hike to Rs500. We will launch an intense agitation if this demand is not met at the PlC meeting,” Ponbila Orumai leader and estate worker Gomathi Augustine said. The women workers had withdrawn their nine-day strike after the management agreed to hike the bonus from ten percent to 20 percent.