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Strike hits work in cardamom plantations

KATTAPPANA: The strike launched by the Co-ordination Committee of Trade Unions on August 13 demanding a hike in minimum wages for permanent and casual labourers has hit the cardamom sector, with the majority of workers at all plantations striking work.

Reports from cardamom plantations said the strike was total.

Temporary workers who had been brought from Tamil Nadu for the harvesting season had returned to their villages.

Informed sources at a cardamom auction centre at Vandanmedu said that if the strike continued, it would affect the quantum of cardamom reaching the auction centres.

They said volumes were expected to fall considerably by next week, as cardamom that reached auction centres was usually that harvested a week ago or earlier.

Cardamom production had risen this season owing to favourable climatic conditions. Failure to harvest the mature seeds on time could result in decay of the crop.

This, in turn, could affect the functioning of cardamom estates, and the cardamom economy, sources said.

Cardamom Growers Association president K.K. Devasia said the plantation managements were not against a hike in wages.

“We suggested an increase from Rs.100.48 to Rs.121.56. However, the unions want minimum wages to be brought on a par with rates in the rubber plantation sector.”

This demand cannot be accepted as prices and the production of cardamom were prone to fluctuations, he said.

“Instead of heeding the Plantation Labour Committee’s suggestion on a hike in wages, trade unions want to take a unilateral decision.”

He said the period from August to October was the prime time for harvesting, and preventing temporary labourers from engaging in the work amounted to imposing a total blockade on the sector.

Meanwhile, the Co-ordination Committee of Trade Unions said the managements’ association was reluctant to enter into an agreement with the unions on the minimum wage.

“This minimum wage rate would apply for the next three years. The living standards of workers in the cardamom plantations, 80 per cent of them from Tamil Nadu, was poor,” said K.V. George Karimattom, president, Co-ordination Committee of Trade Unions.

According to him, the failure of the August 10 meeting convened by Labour Minister P.K. Gurudasan in Thrissur and the August 12 meeting in Cumbum was on account of the stubborn stand taken by the managements’ association on a wage hike.

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