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CEYLON FEDERATION OF LABOUR Reg. No.

February 7, 2021
Pay the Plantation worker the Rs 1000 daily wage she richly deserves
Statement by the Ceylon Federation of Labour (CFL) candid
The Ceylon Federation of Labour (CFL) is dismayed by the recalcitrant attitude of management to the
just demands of the plantation workers seeking a living wage for themselves.
Plantation workers are today paid Rs. 750 per day (basic wage Rs. 700 + Price-wage supplement Rs.
50) which is less than what they were paid ten years ago when adjusted for inflation as the cost of
living has increased by over 50% during that period. In the two years since the Rs. 750 was was
agreed on, the cost of living has increased by 9.2% so that a basic wage + price-wage supplement of
Rs 820 would be needed just to cover this increase. Management has refused to increase this sum by
more than Rs. 25, relying on perverted schemes to pretend to meet the budget speech figure of Rs.
1000. Apart from attendance and productivity bonuses, which trade unions know through experience
workers are often not paid to workers by a manipulating norms, employers are obliged to add the
statutory contributions to EPF and ETF they make to somehow reach this amount.
The bosses in management, most of whom would have already earned in the first two weeks of the
year what a worker would earn during the whole of 2021, show no empathy with the impoverished
estate workers on whose labour they live on and shamelessly add the statutory contributions as great
heart-rending concessions they make to workers. Management company bosses should realise how
outraged they would be if EPF/ETF payments were added to their million-rupee monthly salary when
considering their own salary increases.
The CFL is surprised to see that management is still persisting with its so-called Revenue sharing
proposal which not only deprives workers of their daily wage, EPF and ETF for over half the week,
but also transforms them into “ande” contractors paid on the basis of the leaf they supply while
working on those days on less productive estate lands unofficially sub-leased to them by plantation
companies, themselves lessees of the government-owned lands. Management seems to want to take
labour relations in the estate sector back to pre-colonial days.
The CFL calls upon the management companies to show some empathy to their workers and
magnanimously offer them basic wage and non-deductible allowances of Rs. 1000 per day.
While are aware that the government is attempting to solve the problem through a Wages Board
mechanism, we believe this could have a lasting impact on employer-employee relationship in the
estates.
The CFL congratulates the Hon. Minister and the government for its tenacious approach on behalf of
the workers in their wage demand. However the CFL believes the only way to deal with
uncooperative management is to implement the suggestion made in the budget speech of handing
over the management to new companies which are willing to make the Rs. 1000 payment.
Yours sincerely,
Sgd. T.M.R. Rasseedin
General Secretary, Ceylon Federation of Labour (CFL)

6/3 314/2, Galle Road, Colombo 00400, Sri Lanka

Tel. +94-77-3476623 (M), +94-11-2690613, +94-11-2686188
E-mail: ceylonfederationoflabour@yahoo.com