The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Plantation workers welcome decision on fixing minimum wages

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Thursday, Apr 10, 2008
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Plantation workers welcome decision on fixing minimum wages

Special Correspondent

‘Planters protest against the fixation as highly unethical’
Yercaud now experiencing labour shortage

YERCAUD: The Neelamalai Plantation Workers Union, Yercaud, has welcomed the Government’s decision of fixing minimum wages for coffee plantation workers.

Condemning the planters protest against this fixation of minimum wages for workers, unions General Secretary V. K. Nallamuthu pointed out that it was highly unethical to refuse even the minimum wages for workers who are struggling in inhuman conditions in many plantations in Yercaud. He said that benefits such as provident fund, housing, medi care, bonus etc., were not provided to the workers as per the provisions of the Plantation Workers Act.

Many of these owners in Yercaud, he accused, were not maintaining proper records on their workers. Out of 100 workers, just a handful of them would be permanent in these plantations. In many other plantations, workers were being brought from outside. As the planters refused to provide adequate wages, many of the plantations in Yercaud were now experiencing the problem of labour shortage. Hence, their claims that giving minimum wages of Rs 100.52 to the workers would lead to the closure of plantations in Yercaud could not be accepted.

He urged the planters to accept the Government’s fixation of minimum wages and provide other benefits under the Minimum Wages Act.

Yercaud, he said, had been receiving good rain. Other than coffee, pepper, orange and timber were also grown and sold. The Yercaud coffee was sold higher than the coffee in Karnataka. Hence, the planters should not hesitate to give minimum wages to their workers, he said.

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