Coimbatore: Despite running for over 15 years as a tea leaf picker in an property in Valparai, it have been a battle for 48-year-old Mani (name modified) to feed three mouths of his family. With the rise in price of crucial items, Mani said his family would have starved to dying, in the event that they were denied rice from ration shops.
“My day by day salary has hardly greater by way of Rs 100 over the years,” said Mani. With two children and a unwell wife, he's the only breadwinner of the family. The Rs 302 he earns a day is mostly spent on meals.
Explaining that the salary is Rs 12 higher than the minimal salary determined by way of the bi-party meeting between industry unions and property management, Mani said that the property homeowners had greater it on humanitarian grounds, bearing in mind the price of crucial items.
Mani is compelled to paintings time beyond regulation until evening lots of the days to control his wife’s clinical bills and youngsters’s stationary bills. “We are paid Rs 3 in line with a kilogram of tea leaves we gather,” he said, adding that he and his co-workers must paintings for over 9 hours to get the minimal salary.
“Due to widespread human-animal conflicts, we labourers risk our lives to earn a livelihood,” he informed TOI.
While tea property labourers in Kerala are making plans to call for Rs 600 as day by day salary in the subsequent salary fixation period that commences in a month, the Tamil Nadu executive is not even able to pay half that, said CITU normal secretary P Paramasivam. “During the election campaigns, the employees were promised wages similar to the wages of workers in Kerala, which is Rs 350 in line with day. But the federal government has greater the wages simplest to Rs 290 all over the salary fixation meeting held in January. The salary is revised each and every three years. Until January, the labourers were getting simplest Rs 240 in line with day.”
Apart from the rise in incidents of human-animal warfare, deficient salary is without doubt one of the major causes for the shortage of workers in tea estates, Paramasivam said, pinpointing that over the period of five years, the percentage of workers has reduced to half. “At present, Valparai has over 20,000 labourers running in 55 estates. Many had shifted to Coimbatore and Tirupur the place they may get jobs that pay Rs 500 to Rs 600 in line with day. A lot of workers from other states are introduced in to take on the manpower shortage,” he said.
Meanwhile, Valparai MLA V Kasthuri Vasu said she will lift the problem in the assembly on Monday. “Since the industry unions in Ooty had authorized the salary and so as to handle uniform salary rate around the state, shall we now not do a lot to extend it. I've determined to talk about the salary factor in the assembly on Monday.”
“My day by day salary has hardly greater by way of Rs 100 over the years,” said Mani. With two children and a unwell wife, he's the only breadwinner of the family. The Rs 302 he earns a day is mostly spent on meals.
Explaining that the salary is Rs 12 higher than the minimal salary determined by way of the bi-party meeting between industry unions and property management, Mani said that the property homeowners had greater it on humanitarian grounds, bearing in mind the price of crucial items.
Mani is compelled to paintings time beyond regulation until evening lots of the days to control his wife’s clinical bills and youngsters’s stationary bills. “We are paid Rs 3 in line with a kilogram of tea leaves we gather,” he said, adding that he and his co-workers must paintings for over 9 hours to get the minimal salary.
“Due to widespread human-animal conflicts, we labourers risk our lives to earn a livelihood,” he informed TOI.
While tea property labourers in Kerala are making plans to call for Rs 600 as day by day salary in the subsequent salary fixation period that commences in a month, the Tamil Nadu executive is not even able to pay half that, said CITU normal secretary P Paramasivam. “During the election campaigns, the employees were promised wages similar to the wages of workers in Kerala, which is Rs 350 in line with day. But the federal government has greater the wages simplest to Rs 290 all over the salary fixation meeting held in January. The salary is revised each and every three years. Until January, the labourers were getting simplest Rs 240 in line with day.”
Apart from the rise in incidents of human-animal warfare, deficient salary is without doubt one of the major causes for the shortage of workers in tea estates, Paramasivam said, pinpointing that over the period of five years, the percentage of workers has reduced to half. “At present, Valparai has over 20,000 labourers running in 55 estates. Many had shifted to Coimbatore and Tirupur the place they may get jobs that pay Rs 500 to Rs 600 in line with day. A lot of workers from other states are introduced in to take on the manpower shortage,” he said.
Meanwhile, Valparai MLA V Kasthuri Vasu said she will lift the problem in the assembly on Monday. “Since the industry unions in Ooty had authorized the salary and so as to handle uniform salary rate around the state, shall we now not do a lot to extend it. I've determined to talk about the salary factor in the assembly on Monday.”
Tea leaf pickers in Valparai demand better wages
![Tea leaf pickers in Valparai demand better wages]()
Reviewed by Kailash
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June 25, 2018
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