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Wednesday Nov 13, 2024
Friday, 18 January 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Charumini de Silva
The Regional Plantation Companies are gearing to approach the Wages Board if the deadlock in wage negotiation with trade unions continues, industry spokesman Roshan Rajadurai told the Daily FT.
Despite multiple rounds of negotiations, talks over a new Collective Agreement between the three major plantation trade unions and the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) have reached a complete deadlock with no concrete solution in sight for over five months.
“As the RPCs are public quoted companies, the wages cannot be imposed on us other than by Collective Agreement or Wages Board for tea and rubber,” said Rajadurai who is the Chairman of Plantation Services Group.
The latest round of discussion to break the deadlock in wage negotiations, held last week and chaired by Plantation Minister Navin Dissanayake along with Labour Minister Daya Gamage and all stakeholders, failed to reach an agreement acceptable to both parties.
“We see no light at the end of the tunnel yet, as nobody is willing to diverge from their ultimatum and viewpoints to reach an agreement,” an industry source told Daily FT.
At the meeting, Minister Dissanayake asked the Plantation companies to pay the demanded wage of Rs. 1000, which the RPCs have refused. Instead, the RPCs said they are able to pay a daily wage of Rs. 940, including all incentives and benefits.
The RPCs maintained that it was not financially viable to pay the basic daily wage of Rs. 1000 as demanded by the trade unions, insisting that workers should adopt a productivity-based model.
However, the three main plantation trade unions, Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Lanka Jathika Estate Workers’ Union (LJEWU), and the Joint Plantation Trade Union Centre (JPTUC), had refused to accept RPCs alternative option to earn a daily wage of Rs. 1,000, refusing the offer made by the RPCs.
