By Sarah Hannan In a long-awaited breakthrough, plantation company owners have agreed to provide wage increments for estate workers if the Government agrees to provide them subsidies and concessions in return. These sentiments were shared by the plantation company owners with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa at the last meeting held on Thursday (25) at Temple Trees, The Sunday Morning learnt. Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) Vice President Senthil Thondaman, speaking to The Sunday Morning, said: “Plantation company owners have expressed their interest in providing the necessary increments. But this time, they have requested the Government to provide subsidies and concessions for key necessities such as fertiliser purchases and issuing loans to facilitate the increments as the industry is facing financial restraints due to the present economic and financial climate.” When contacted, Planters’ Association of Ceylon Chairman Roshan Rajadurai confirmed that at the recent meeting that was held at Temple Trees, the plantation companies had expressed their willingness to consider the increments, provided that the Government offers them subsidies and concessions to support the exercise. “Realistically speaking, none of us will have the budgets to give wage increments in the coming weeks. But should the Government consider our requests and come back with a favourable response, we will be able to accommodate the wage increments. However, we would like to stress the fact that at present, even with concessions and subsidies, it would be a massive undertaking for all companies to accommodate it,” he said. Rajadurai noted that when the wage increment comes into effect, the entire plantation network of companies will possibly have to allocate Rs. 9 billion a year, while each plantation company will have to bear a cost of about Rs. 350-400 million per year. In the case of his organisation which overlooks three such plantations, it will need Rs. 1 billion to increase wages of at least 25,000 workers. The Government is to deliberate on these requests over the next few days and communicate the agreeable terms to plantation owners, after which they are to let the Government know the exact dates the increments can come into effect. According to Rajadurai, another meeting will probably be scheduled next week with all stakeholders concerned, and the wage increment can be applied immediately after the decision is announced. The Prime Minister along with the Ministry for Plantation Industries and Export Agriculture and the plantation owners are scheduled to gather once more before they could confirm on when the daily wages could be increased. However, Rajadurai said that the proposals the companies had presented to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on the reasons and the timeline to apply wage increments had been disregarded. “Even in January, we told the President that the companies are unable to give a wage hike immediately as we were facing financial restraints. But with Covid-19, the industry has spiralled downward further, with the economic climate presenting more challenges in moving our products to international markets.” The President in early January instructed that the daily wage of a plantation worker was to be increased accordingly with effect from 1 March. However, the plantation owners had said they were short of funds in January. During the meeting on 18 June, CWC General Secretary Jeevan Thondaman demanded the plantation company heads increase the daily wage of estate sector workers to Rs. 1,000 by adding a price-share supplement, productivity incentive, and attendance incentive to the day’s basic salary of Rs. 700. In February 2019, plantation companies and workers signed a collective agreement agreeing to a daily wage of Rs. 700, up from Rs. 500. The then Government promised to add a supplementary day rate of Rs. 50 to be provided from taxpayers’ money for a year. Should an annual increment of wages for the plantation sector be considered, plantation company owners would have to decide as to which wage increment model they would be taking into consideration.