The Hindu : Kerala News : Cashew processors wary of new wages

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 13, 2006
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Kerala

Kerala

Cashew processors wary of new wages

Ignatius Pereira

KOLLAM: Even as there will be jubilation when the revised minimum wages for cashew workers come into force in January, private sector cashew processors here fear that the revision will adversely affect them.

This is because the cashew industry has been steadily growing in other States where the processing charges (labour charges) will be less than half of the charges in Kerala from January. When the revised minimum wages come into force, the processing charge in Kerala for a sack containing 80 kg of raw nut will work out to around Rs.1300, which is almost double the current wages.

This would mean that a worker would get about Rs.150 per day as wage. The processing charges for the same quantity of raw cashew in Tamil Nadu will be less than Rs.600.

In Andhra Pradesh it is Rs.450. West Bengal too has some cashew factories and there the daily wages are Rs.30 per person, the private sector processors said.

It is this disparity in processing charges that is worrying the Kerala-based private sector cashew factory owners.

While agreeing that a wage hike for cashew workers is in no way unjustified, the factory owners at the same time said the big disparity in wages in Kerala and other States can hit the industry here.

Kollam-based cashew processors allege that their `so called' representatives in the Industrial Relations Committee, who signed to endorse the minimum wage hike for cashew workers, were those who had more factories in Tamil Nadu than in Kerala.

For them the wage structure in Kerala does not matter since they were already Tamil Nadu-based processors.

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