Minister assures wage hike for plantation workers

Chamikara Weerasinghe

COLOMBO: Labour Relations and Foreign Employment Minister Athauda Seneviratna has pledged that he would take steps to increase the wages of plantation workers.

The Minister had promised to take all measures to increase their wages participating at a special meeting, which was held recently at the Labour Ministry with the representatives of Sri Lanka Independent Estate Workers Union.

Labour Ministry sources said that the Minister had also given instructions to ensure that all estate workers get the Rs. 1,000 monthly increase, which had been approved by the Ministry.

Sources admitted that the approved monthly increase is yet to become a reality on some of the estates.

Meanwhile, moves are under way by the Ministry to increase the daily wages of estate workers from the present Rs. 140 to Rs. 250 by way of a Parliament Act.

The Ministry will also take steps to renovate hospitals in the plantation sector on the instructions of Minister Seneviratna.

Minister Seneviratna sees no reason as to why the planters are reluctant to increase the salaries of their workers since the government had taken steps to provide the workers with facilities such as electricity and proper housing against their present "line rooms."

"The government is doing a great deal of work in relation to the welfare of the estate workers in that it has undertaken the development of roads on estates, recruiting teachers which means the planters hardly spend any money on "worker welfare," he said.

"Hence, it is the duty of the planters to increase their wages," he said.

"The Labour Ministry also plans to establish a death donation scheme to benefit the workers whereby Rs. 25,000 will be given to a family upon the death of an estate worker, and Rs. 10,000 upon the death of a family member of an estate worker," he said.

The death donation scheme is to be established after signing of a collective agreement between the government and the planters, Ministry sources said.