Kerala - Kottayam   

Plantation staff protest on June 16

KOTTAYAM: The Joint Council of Plantation Staff which met here on Sunday has alleged that the plantation managements were trying to subvert the minimum wage and dearness allowance fixed by the State government. In a press note issued after the conclave, the Council leaders said they would observe June 16 as ‘black day’ if the managements refused to implement the order till then. This will be followed by a token strike on July 2, they added.

The leaders said that during the last three decades the service and remuneration package of the plantation staff in Kerala have not been scientifically reviewed. Instead, plantation managements had followed a policy of imposing the contracts that they had entered with their staff in Tamil Nadu on their Kerala colleagues, they alleged. Last year the government had issued an order revising the remuneration and service condition of the plantation labourers, but the managements had succeeded in obtaining an interim stay order from the court. But, on account of sustained struggle by the labourers, the managements were forced to implement the government decision, they said. However, in the case of the plantation staff, the managements have refused to implement the government decision, they pointed out. The leaders said that this was because of the fact that the strength of the plantation staff was less than 5,000, against the four lakh plantation labourers.

Though the Labour Commissioner had called meetings nearly a dozen times, the managements had refused to attend. They said. “This was a planned strategy to impose their contractual terms with Tamil Nadu counterparts, after obtaining a stay order against the government notification,” the leaders alleged. The starting salary of the plantation staff in the private sector has been put at Rs.3,330, while that of the staff in public sector plantations get three times the salary. They asked the managements and the government to take necessary corrective steps and to implement the same with effect from January 1, 2005.

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