President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has decided that the plantation workers minimum daily wage should be 1,000 rupees from March 1, 2020.
In additionally, the President had instructed all sectors of the estate sector, to take steps for infrastructure development.
This payment is dated 2021-02-22. March 1, 2021 is just a few days away. But according to the president, the wages of plantation workers haven’t increase.
The current ruling party announced at the last presidential and general elections that it would increase the daily wage of plantation workers to 1,000 rupees. This is simply one of the promises of the political arena.
Plantation employers have always opposed these wage increases. They do not want the worker to earn 1000 rupees a day. Meanwhile, the Wages Board had decided in the last days of last month to implement the government’s daily wage increase of 1,000 rupees within a week as promised by the government. Accordingly, it is possible to increase the daily allowance of plantation workers from Rs. 900 to Rs. 1000, said Labor Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva. The decision was taken during a meeting between the Minister of Labor and the Tea and Rubber Board.
Protests must be called by the Commissioner General of Labor before being gazette after approval by the Wage Board. Accordingly, protests were called within 14 days.
The estate employers have filed 185 protest petitions. There were 171 protests against tea and 14 against rubber.
All were summoned by the Wages Board on February 19 to discuss the protests, but only one estate employer was present. The Commissioner General of Labor has taken steps to adjourn the meeting to March 01 due to the lack of quorum required to hold the meeting.
The Ministry of Labor states that if the estate employers do not show up on the same day, the government will take a stern decision against them and the necessary steps are being discussed in this regard.