Unsold agricultural produce, especially latex, and fall in prices have landed the Aralam farm managed by Aralam Farming Corporation (Kerala) Ltd. (AFCL) in a financial crisis, pushing farm workers and employees on a collision course with the management over non-payment of the November salary.
Unions of workers and employees affiliated to the Centre of India Trade Unions (CITU), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) on Wednesday served a strike notice on the management demanding, among other things, regular payment of salary and wages.
The unions informed the management that they would go on an indefinite strike from January 5 if their demands were not met.
“The financial crisis in the farm is aggravated by the non-auctioning of the stock of ammoniated latex from the farm’s rubber plantation and fall in the prices of rubber and coconut and other farm produce,” said T.K. Vishwanathan Nair, Managing Director, AFCL.
Additional burden
Additional financial burden owing to payment of pay arrears with effect from January 1, 2015, when pay scale was revised, and increase in dearness allowances and benefits added to the financial constraints of the farm, he told The Hindu .
The farm now has a stock of 360 barrels of latex, each weighing 200 kg. The stock could not be disposed of as no bidder turned up at the auction. Of the 250 regular workers and employees of the farm, 102 were Adivasis who were recently regularised.
According to farm management sources, the farm’s annual expenditure, including salaries and wages, is around Rs. 12 crore but its revenue is somewhere close to Rs. 8 crore. Much of the farm’s major source of revenue is perennial crops such as coconut, cashew, areca nut, and rubber, which had been planted 25 or 30 years ago. The farm’s plan to replant them could not be implemented because of paucity of funds, the sources said.
Proposal rejected
K. Janardhanan, secretary of the CITU-affiliated union of workers, said the farm management had not tried to secure funds from the State government. The management informed the workers on December 15 that they would be paid 50 per cent of the salary, he said adding that the unions rejected the proposal.
‘No govt. assistance’
R.P. Pillai, secretary of the INTUC-affiliated union of workers, said the crisis had aggravated because of the lack of financial assistance from the government despite the huge hike in expenditure following the regularisation of over 100 Adivasi workers.
The unions’ other demands include regularisation of all agricultural workers who had worked for 240 days and conversion of all plantation workers to agricultural workers. The management sources also said the farm could not survive without government aid.
