The Hindu Business Line : Don't press for a wage hike, APK tells workers

THE Association of Planters of Kerala (APK) has sought the cooperation of trade unions in not pressing for minimum wage revision and to come forward to settle the wage issue on a realistic and pragmatic basis.

The APK has come out with such a request in view of the low prices of tea, coffee, and cardamom. "Without a substantial increase in labour productivity, there is no chance for the tea industry to survive by paying even the current wages, leave alone the proposed high minimum wages," it said in a release.

The financial crisis in the South Indian tea industry in general, and the industry in Kerala in particular, is acute, it added.

If the agitation on this issue has dies down, it is because of the fatalistic acceptance that nothing appears to be possible to resuscitate the tea plantation sector.

In the meantime, the closed and abandoned estates continue as they are. According to official figures of the State Government, 37 plantations have been closed down in the State and the Government has formed district relief committees and is providing some relief care to the affected workers.

The rest of the estates are surviving either because they are part of composite plantation companies with other profitable crops such as rubber or because the pure tea companies are paying only a portion of the wages due to the workers as advance, and the workers, trade unions and the Government authorities - realising the helplessness of such plantations - have not been making an issue of the non-payment of the wages, it said.

Suicides of farmers, including small tea and coffee growers, are not a new phenomenon in Kerala ever since the ill-effects of globalisation began to be felt in terms of crash in tea and coffee prices, it added.

The year 2003 was the worst in the tea crisis saga. The slight improvement in prices during 2004 kindled some hope that the industry might be on the way to recovery. But this hope has been dashed by the steady backslide in prices again to the 2003 low levels.

The South Indian average price, which was Rs 68.50 a kg in 1998, crashed to Rs 41.63 in 2002 and dropped further to Rs 39.90 in 2003. The average price increased to 47.01 in 2004. But the average price realised for the January-October 2005 period is Rs 42.61 against Rs 46.62 in the corresponding period in 2004.

If the trend continues, the average price for 2005 is not likely to be more than Rs 40, the release said.

It was in this backdrop of a disastrous price situation, when the tea and coffee plantations were unable to pay normal prevailing wages fixed either under the last settlement or under the minimum wages notification of 1996, that the Government published in June this year proposals for a steep revision of the minimum wages by more than 16 per cent for tea, coffee, and cardamom, and 30 per cent in rubber.

These proposals are currently under deliberation in the appropriate forums, though the employers have opposed the revision. "The confirmation of minimum wage proposals will be the last straw on the camel's back as far as the Kerala tea, coffee, and cardamom plantations are concerned," APK said.

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