The All India Plantation Workers Federation has expressed its support to the one-day nationwide strike on September 2 to protest against the unilateral amendments in labour laws and said that all the seven lakh plantain workers in the southern states will participate in it.
The BJP-led Centre is making attempts to bring amendments to The Plantations Labour Act 1951 and to the other labour laws on its own, much against the wishes of the entire working class. The amendments will affect the livelihood of the plantation workers to a big extent.
The Centre should do away with its move, a resolution was adopted at the south zone meeting of the Federation held in the city on Wednesday.
The meeting also demanded minimum monthly wages of Rs. 18,000 for the plantation workers.
The liberal economic policies pursued by the Centre have badly hit the rubber industry in the country.
The government should protect the rubber industry, by slapping a ban on the import of rubber and rubber products and hiking the import duty on the same, another resolution said.
The tripartite committee set up by the State Government for solving the problems confronting the plantation workers has not met in the last three years. Due to this, the problems of the workers could not be taken to the notice of the government.
The State Government should convene the meetings of the tripartite committee regularly.
A large number of workers from the North Indian states of Jharkhand, Assam and Bihar are employed in the estates in Salem, Nilgris, Theni, Tirunelveli and Valparai. They do not enjoy any legal and social security.
The State Government should extend legal and social security to all these workers and protect their interest.
Wild animals
The State Government should also protect the plantation workers from the attacks of wild animals.
The government and the estate managements should provide a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh to the kin of the workers killed by the wild animals.
The State Government should ensure the full-fledged functioning of the Coffee Board at Yercaud, yet another resolution said.
K. C. Gopikrishnan, convener of the Tamil Nadu unit of the Federation; Ayyappan Pillai, southern zone secretary; P. K. Rajan, secretary of the Kerala state unit; V. Sukumaran, president of the Karnataka state unit, and T. Udayakumar, Tamil Nadu State secretary of the CITU, spoke.
