Discontent is brewing among 3,000 women workers of plantation companies at Nelliampathy in Palakkad district. Most of the employees of the tea estates, set up during the British period and now owned by plantation companies, are paid only nominal wages, violating all labour laws. Many of them are still daily wagers, despite more than two decades of service.
“We are getting a meagre payment of Rs.229 a day. In the last three years, we got no wage hike and bonus. After the success of the Munnar women’s agitation, we are thinking of a similar agitation here,” says S. Rugmini, a worker of a plantation at Padagiri.
Nelliampathy has 53 major plantations functioning on land leased from the Forest Department.
Apart from Tamil workers brought in by the then British owners from western Tamil Nadu, the plantations have over 600 tribal employees, mainly those from the Kadar community. The workers complain that the governmental is taking no initiative to keep operational 11 estates taken back from private operators following the end of lease period.
“The private custodians are still taking revenue from these estates using temporary workers from West Bengal and Bihar. They are not allowing us to work,” says Ramesh Kuttappan, an employee of Cherunelli Estate, where the operators challenged the government takeover in court.
The living conditions of workers at Karuna Estate remain pitiable though the management reaps huge profit. “We are in a do or die battle where trade unions are very weak. Even at the government-run Oranage and Fruits Farm, the issue of confirming temporary workers remains unresolved,” says S. Akhila, a worker from Meenampara Estate.
The women workers have started campaigning among themselves to forge a combine to fight for their rights.
