By Maheesha Mudugamuwa

 

The JVP affiliated All Ceylon Estate Workers Union (ACEWU) today urged the government to take immediate steps to ensure that estate workers are paid a minimum basic salary on par with government servants, so that they can improve their standard of living.

For this to be achieved, the increase called for by the trade union association must guarantee a minimum monthly salary increase of Rs. 32, 040 for all estate workers and the national minimum daily wage should increase to Rs. 1, 281.

ACEWU General Secretary J.M.A Premaratne told The Morning that at present the minimum daily wage of an estate worker was only Rs. 500 and even though there were several allowances, only 35 percent of the total estate workers were received them as it was difficult to achieve the requirements that should be fulfilled to obtain such allowances.

The poverty and malnutrition has become the most severe issues in the estate sector, as about 12 percent of estate people were below the poverty line. However the urban poverty was only 2 percent. The malnutrition at estate sector was 22 percent but in urban areas it was only 5 percent, Premaratne stressed.

He noted that the plantation companies had the financial strength to increase the minimum daily wage of a worker.

Around 6 percent of the total Sri Lankan population were living in estates while they contributes for around 13 percent of the total national income, he said adding that the total income from tea exports had also been increased to USD 4.7 last year from USD 3.6 in 2016 and therefore the daily wage of the estate workers should also be increased in parallel to that.

“The Regional Plantation Companies are getting huge sums of money for the tea produced by the workers, but the estate workers do not get any benefit. Since the last wage hike, the cost of living has increased dramatically, so they have to give the workers a salary increase,” ACEWU General Secretary stressed.