The Hindu : Wage reduction has saved plantation workers, says PAT

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Wage reduction has saved plantation workers, says PAT

By Our Special Correspondent

Coimbatore May 31. The Planters' Association of Tamil Nadu (PAT) has asserted that it was the wage reduction in the State that saved the plantation workers from loss of employment and attendant distress while it was the burden of a much higher wage that led to the closure of the gardens in Kerala.

In a statement here, C. Sankaranarayanan, Adviser, PAT, refuted the view that the wage reduction in Tamil Nadu was likely to lead to unrest and social instability among the plantation workers.

He referred to the observation of the Labour Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, at the recent meet of the All India Regional Labour Commissioners that the need of the hour was "protecting the jobs and allowing the industries to grow". The Secretary had then pointed out that in plantations of the Nilgiris closures had been averted as workers had agreed to reduction in wages though a dispute had been referred for adjudication.

He made it clear that the situation in Kerala was different from that in Tamil Nadu.

The "mass closure of estates leaving large numbers of workers jobless, leading to starvation or stoppage of social welfare benefits may have happened in the Peermade area of Idukki district, which is really the heart-land of the crisis so far as workers are concerned".

This, the statement noted, should not be mixed up with the situation in Tamil Nadu.

"From these two sets of situations, it should have been easy for any impartial observer to conclude that it was the wage reduction in Tamil Nadu that saved the plantation workers from loss of employment and attendant distress, while it was the burden of much higher wages that led to the closure in Kerala", Mr. Sankaranarayanan said.

He questioned the wisdom of the recommendation of a fact-finding committee of some of the trade unions for a ban on introduction of modern technology like mechanical harvesters and shears, when the country was reeling under the adverse impact of globalisation, as "ill-conceived".

He contended that modern technology had been universally accepted except by some trade unions and the survival of the industry depended on new technologies for increasing productivity and making Indian products globally competitive.

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