It’s time to end exploitative legacy on our estates - EDITORIAL

The export of tea is one of our country’s main export earners and Sri Lanka’s tea industry performed well in 2021 earning US$ 1.3 billion, despite lower yields and higher costs of production. 
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tea Board Jayampathy Molligoda said Sri Lanka earned approximately US$1.3 billion US dollars from the export of 288 million kg of tea in 2021. 

Our sister paper, ‘The Weekend FT’ of October 1, 2022 reported, the FOB value of tea was Rs. 1,951.82 in August this year was the highest ever in a calender month. It surpassed the previous best of Rs. 1,863,74 per kg achieved in July. The FOB value per kg in August was US$ 5.41, the highest in more than 20 years. Last year the FOB value was US$4.55 and the previous record was US$ 5.29 in 2017. The report adds in August earnings from tea export rose by 6.54% YoY to US$ 124.4 million.
So we, as Lankans are extremely glad, that despite the problems created by government’s bad decisions, the Covid-19 pandemic and a variety of other problems, at least one section of our economy is on the up. As the FT report describes it, it has been a ‘tumultuous time for tea’.

Amidst these glad tidings, it is only appropriate to take look at the fate of tea estate/plantation workers, on whose work our country is beginning to earn a few dollars more. 
Tea plantation workers, though being responsible for bringing in the highest foreign exchange earnings into the country today, remain among the lowest paid, if not the lowest paid workers in the country. Until February 2021, a worker received Rs. 700/- per day and an incentive bonus on the number of kg plucked per day. Their monthly wages amounted to Rs. 18,210 per month.

At the same time, a temporary worker in Colombo or elsewhere in the country was over Rs. 1,000/- per day!
After years of agitation by workers demanding a minimum of Rs. 1,000/- per day, in 2021, the government intervened to raise the daily wage paid to a tea plucker to Rs. 1,000/- per day. However, this wage-rise was tied to a minimum weightage of leaves plucked per day. Under the scheme in March 2021, workers received Rs. 27,200/- per month. But the wage increase was made tied to 27 days work per month and a minimum number of kg plucked per day.

However, the cost of food alone, for a family of four during this period, was over Rs. 25,000/- per month, and estate families have always exceeded the two- children mark.
In May 2021, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government’s ruling on the Rs. 1,000/- per day wage was disregarded. Today the workers’ wages have fallen. In May, workers received around Rs. 17,480/- per month - less than the sum they received in February 2021!
Despite being the third largest exchange earner in the country, estate housing for workers does not even meet basic standards. Workers still live in over-crowded line rooms (attached houses covering a 120 sq. ft.) located in the middle of the plantation. These line rooms are without sanitation and
running water. 

Medical facilities are located miles away in the townships and public transport is rare. Estate schools for workers’ children are basic and often do not provide education above primary level. 
Over 80% of worker families still live in these line houses as mentioned earlier, covering an area of 10 x 12 sq. ft. There are an estimated 500,000 plantation workers living in the tea estates where they work.
According to social activist Ganeshalingam, over 80% of the plantation workers still live in these line rooms which were constructed during the British colonial rule. Only around 30,000 have received single houses he said.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” To seek to reduce the suffering of those who are completely under one’s domination, and unable to fight back, is truly a mark of a civilized society.
The plantation workers are human, but they live in sub human dwellings. They bring in the much-needed foreign exchange to keep the economic wheels of our country rolling. 
It’s time to right the wrongs of the colonial legacy and it should be done here and now.