Ceylon Today Editorial

HAVE WE FORGOTTEN TO BE HUMAN?

09 October 2016

The plantations sector strike has ended after a 12-day turnout that ended in a whimper for the hapless workers who in the end got a measly Rs 110 daily wage increase from the plantation bosses. The increase brings their minimum daily wage, provided they work 25 days a month, to just Rs 730 a day.

The Plantations claim the strike had caused a Rs 1,000 million loss, most of it in foreign exchange that would have normally been export returns. That works out to less than Rs 100 million A DAY FOR THE 12 DAYS. That computation would give us an aggregate earning of just over Rs 2,500 million over a 30-day month.

The wage increase works out to an average of less than Rs 3,000 a worker a month. For 200,000 plantation workers that would come to an increase of roughly Rs 600 million a month.

Let's assume that the total export revenue for 2016 will be Rs 30 billion on this computation of
Rs 1 billion for 12 days.

Let's also assume that the wage hike of Rs 110 a day for 200,000 workers amounts to roughly Rs 7.2 billion for this year. That's roughly around 20 per cent of projected revenue of Rs 30 billion.

But let's also not forget that we have 1.2 million dependents of plantation workers who will depend on that mere Rs 110 a day for a better life style.


If we assume that each plantation worker has three dependents that works out to five people comprising one family expected to have a better quality of life on Rs 110 a day.

THAT WORKS OUT TO THE HANDSOME SUM OF Rs 22 A PERSON IN AN AVERAGE PLANTATION WORKER'S FAMILY.

So we've had a 12-day strike that puts a mere Rs 22 in the hands of a breadwinner to improve the quality of life of just one of his children.

A news feature carried in this paper today gives a passing glance at the lives of these hapless plantation workers. But as we have just pointed out, the State and private plantations sectors have just given a breadwinner on a plantation, Rs 22 more per child. God forbid that breadwinner also has a mother or an old father to support.

Unions are accused of having cut a deal with employers to match parochial political agendas. That does not concern us in this 'land like no other' as the former regime was fond of referring to Sri Lanka.

You can say that again! and again! and again! For in what other nation, does a worker has to awake at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m., hike a cold mountain and pluck 20 kilos of tea leaves and stage a 12-day demand demonstration to get just Rs 22 a day more to make a loved one's life better?

Our news feature quotes a trade union leader plaintively say that the plantations sector must also not forget that it's its moral duty to ensure the wage earner, whose sweat has enriched the soil of the plantations, has a progressively improving quality of life.

If Rs 22 is all that can be given to help improve the quality of life of a plantation worker's loved one a day, in terms of today's market prices, a plantation worker can just barely manage to buy an extra 500 grams of Salaya to feed 5 to 6 dependents. That would, as any feline lover would tell you, work out to just about two little fish per person a day, when culled, amounting to just a table spoonful of fish, per person.

That's pretty reminiscent of the saying that 'Without a rich heart – Wealth is an ugly beggar.'

The plantations industry walked away from the negotiating table with a victory over the striking workers, smugly satisfied at victory over a legitimate and just human need, a want, a crying desperate need for a better life.

We do not know what the exact maths about the measly wage hike works out to for the plantation owners, private and State.

But there's an indictment of human nature here, of a humane sensitivity to another's want, which has somehow got lost in the drive for maximizing profits. Not that there is anything wrong in that, or illegal or even justiciable.

But, we're talking of being human here, of being sensitive to the just cry of the downtrodden, the exploited. That, after all, is the holy grail of journalism, the humane defence of the defenceless.
We're talking of not allowing the world of business and finance, of economic affairs, to thwart what must essentially come from a human heart, a rich human heart.

Was the victory pyrrhic then? It would seem so when one visualizes a poor plantation wage-earner's kid look pathetically at two little fish on his dinner plate.

Wealth oft is an ugly beggar!