{"id":48814,"date":"2016-10-04T16:24:03","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T20:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48814"},"modified":"2016-10-04T16:29:11","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T20:29:11","slug":"plantation-workers-protest-for-more-than-a-week-demanding-raise-of-daily-wage-from-620-rs-to-1000-rupees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48814","title":{"rendered":"Lankan Plantation Workers Protest for More than a Week Demanding Raise of daily Wage from 620 Rs to 1000 Rupees."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By<\/p>\n<p>Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thousands of Indian origin Tamils, employed in Sri Lanka\u2019s famed tea estates, are on protest for a week now, demanding higher wages. <\/p>\n<p>They are asking for a daily wage of LKR 1,000 (around Rs. 450), which estate owners have deemed high, citing the current \u201crisk-prone\u201d business environment.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The estate workers\u2019 wages were due for revision last year, after a prior collective wage agreement expired in March 2015. However, over a year after the agreement was signed by owners and workers, wages are yet to increase, protesting workers point out. <\/p>\n<p>As per the 2013 agreement, the daily wage of an estate worker is LKR 620 (about Rs. 280), including EPF, ETF and an incentive linked to the number of days of labour.<\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nIndependent protest <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Leader of the Tamil Progressive Alliance and Minister of National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages, Mano Ganesan, on Tuesday said the protests were independent and spontaneous, and reflected the plight of the estate workers. \u201cThis is a historically oppressed community that has toiled in the estates for the country\u2019s prosperity. Their demands should not be ignored,\u201d he said in a press conference. <\/p>\n<p>Nearly 9 lakh Tamils of recent Indian origin live in Sri Lanka, largely in the country\u2019s Central and Uva Provinces. According to government records, over two lakh people constitute the labour force employed in the tea estates. <\/p>\n<p>Till date, most of them live in line rooms constructed over a hundred years ago, when the British brought them down from India to work in the plantations. <\/p>\n<p>Tea is Sri Lanka\u2019s second largest export commodity, accounting for about 13 per cent of total export earnings. However in 2015, export earnings from tea declined significantly by 17.7 per cent to $1.34 billion. <\/p>\n<p>It was the lowest value in five years, according to the Central Bank\u2019s annual report, which attributed the decline to changes in the global economy.<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nCourtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton48814\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D48814&amp;text=Lankan%20Plantation%20Workers%20Protest%20for%20More%20than%20a%20Week%20Demanding%20Raise%20of%20daily%20Wage%20from%20620%20Rs%20to%201000%20Rupees.&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Meera Srinivasan Thousands of Indian origin Tamils, employed in Sri Lanka\u2019s famed tea estates, are on protest for a week now, demanding higher wages. They are asking for a daily wage of LKR 1,000 (around Rs. 450), which estate owners have deemed high, citing the current \u201crisk-prone\u201d business environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48816,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48814\/revisions\/48816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}