PA responds to Plantation Ministers comment on worker welfare
The Planters’ Association of Ceylon (PA) in response to comments made by Minister of Plantations, Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, published on Daily News under the headlines “RPCs have not looked at welfare of estate workers …” on December 12, 2022 states as follows.
The PA refutes that “RPCs have not looked into welfare”, given that RPCs are actively engaged in numerous initiatives individually and through their collective engagement with the Plantation Human Development Trust (PHDT) –which is also comprised the Government of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Plantations, as well as Plantation Trade Unions.
When RPCs took over the loss-making Plantation Sector from the government in 1992 at a time when the treasury injected Rs. 5bn. annually(which is equivalent to the food imports of the country), the labour force was 343,536 and not 450,000 as cited in the article. The PA wishes to note however, that prior to RPC’s taking over from the State management, the labour force declined from 521,285 to 368,455 within a span of 10 years. RPCs have provided consistent financial, operational and logistical support to the PHDT in order to expand the development of housing, sanitation, water supply, and re-roofing, as well as conducting health and nutritional, and monitoring quality of educational services across the estate community.
In the 30 years since its inception, the PHDT has facilitated and managed the utilisation of donor funds in excess of Rs. 10.4 billion as of 2018. During the COVID crisis, RPCs were also first and fastest to respond to the needs of the estate community, coordinating with health authorities to provide 100% vaccination, essential rations, and extraordinary support on healthcare on RPC estates. The PA reiterates that the PHDT as the flagship organization in charge of ensuring the welfare of the estate sector community at large is unique in the support it provides among global competitors, and is one of several leading examples of RPCs being engaged contrary to the claims attributed in the article.
RPCs have also invested in care for the elderly, and mentally and physically disabled members of the community. While acknowledging that the RPC labour force continues to decline, the PA reiterates that the greatest obstacle to improving living conditions is not owing to a lack of hand-outs from RPCs, but rather from the total stagnation in reforms to the colonial era daily wage model.
The stagnation and blocking of progressive wage reforms – which most recently culminated in the abrogation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), means that the authority and responsibility for enhancing worker earnings – and by extension quality of life rests with the Government of Sri Lanka.
The PA reiterates that the failure to implement a productivity linked wage which even Trade Union leaders are nominally claiming support for has restricted the capacity of RPC workers to earn significantly larger sums.
Such a progressive wage model would incentivize productivity in the same manner that is practiced with immense success across the entire Tea Smallholder Sector – which accounts for more than 70% of Sri Lanka’s total tea production, and in the apparel sector, which is allowed a free hand in setting wages and incentives for its workers, and which therefore enjoys significantly greater labour productivity.
The PA also notes that unlike any of the other enterprises which the RPC labour force is migrating into, the plantation industry remains the only one in Sri Lanka to provide such extraordinary support to not just its employees, but also to the 1 million strong estate community, of which only approximately 10% contribute their labour to RPCs.