Collective Bargaining in Plantation Industry

Collective Bargaining in Plantation Industry

 Under colonialism, the social provisioning in the plantations was kept to a bare minimum and under the obligation of companies. By denying access to representative institutions, the companies with the coercive power of the colonial state, maintained strict control over the workers denying capacities to organize (Kurien, 1998; Nadesan, 1993).

As migrant indentured laborers, the plantation Tamil workers, ‘Indian Tamils’, remain subordinated within the Tamil ethnic hierarchy dominated by the ‘Jaffna’ Tamils (Karthigesu Sivathamby, 1984).

Trade Union Representation  

Although minimum union rights were gained in the mid-1930s, the nationalization of plantations under the United Front government (1970-77) was central to extending worker rights and state social provisioning.

 

With the privatization of the plantations in the 1990s, two unions have dominated the sector the UNP party union, the Lanka Jathika Estate Workers Unions (LJEWU) and the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC). Together these unions controlled nearly 70%-75% of the unionized workers in the late 1990s (Maliyagoda, 2000). Meanwhile, the smaller unions, both independent and party unions, formalized their alliance under the Joint Plantation Trade Union Center (JPTUC) in order to enter collective bargaining agreements (Maliyagoda 2000), Which the agreement to be renewed every other year.

  

Barriers of Collective Bargaining

 Huge losses in tea and plantations, due to falling commodity prices, crop losses due to abnormal weather, resulting high cost of production, leads to delay the agreement between the plantation unions and the RPC’s for one and half years. Which should have been finalized in 2016.

  

New Methods used

 Industrial caption” Roshan Rajadurai” Managing Director of the largest plantation company in Sri Lanka as the Chairman of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon – which represents the Regional Plantation Companies (RPC's) emphasized the importance of moving from the present 150-year old archaic attendance-based wage system, which has led to escalation of costs – particularly as it does not provide sufficient incentive for workers to increase output. And he innovate a productivity based revenue share model.

 

Conclusion

The productivity-based remuneration method, which Rajadurai proposed, has proven to be a success at RPC estates where he has been implemented to a certain extent. The outcome has been mutually-beneficial for both the plantation company and the workers. Which was convinced to all parties presented for collective bargaining and unsettled dispute for one and half years were concluded.

 Reference

 Janaka Biyanwila, Ethnicity and women worker struggles in the Sri Lankan tea plantations

(June 29 - July 1, 2007)

Janaka Biyanwila, (2004) Trade Unions in Sri Lanka under Globalisation: Reinventing worker Solidarity, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Western Australia, Perth. Accessible through the university library

http://catalogue.library.uwa.edu.au/

 Central Bank (2004). Annual Report, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Colombo www.centralbanklanka.org/,

 Daily News, 19^th Saturday November, 2016

Kurien, Nadesan, A History of Upcountry Tamil People in Sri Lanka,(1998).