Kerala: 4,000 tea workers protest bonus cut, keep unions out in Munnar Tea estate workers of Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Limited in Munnar protest against a cut in bonus rates. (Source: Indian Express) Without the support of trade unions or their leaders, 4,000-odd tea estate workers of Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Limited (formerly Tata Tea) filled the streets of Munnar hill station in Kerala for the third day on Tuesday, demanding an increase in bonus and daily wages. A major chunk of the agitators were women deployed for plucking tea leaves in the estate. In a state known for influential trade union leaders, no politicians are leading the agitation from the front. The protesters have not allowed their union leaders of AITUC, CITU and INTUC (of CPI, CPM and Congress, respectively) to join the stir against reducing the bonus to 10 per cent. On Sunday, the workers had attacked the offices of the trade unions. Subsequently, union leaders have gone into hiding. Normal life in Munnar, a major tourist destination in Kerala, was also hit due to the stir. On Tuesday, women workers have started pouring onto the streets of Munnar. The women alleged that the trade union leaders had colluded with the management of the Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Limited (KDHP) to deny them 20 per cent bonus. The women workers did not allow the BJP to intervene in the issue, although the party has called for a dawn-to-dusk bandh in Idukki district on Tuesday. Devikulam sub-collector P Rajeev, who lead the conciliatory talks, said “the agitation has no leaders. Workers, mostly women, have spontaneously hit the streets. They have brought Munnar to standstill, apart from holding the senior officials of the KDHP as hostages on Monday. The agitators want 20 per cent bonus, but the company is willing to pay only 10 per cent. The labour commissioner has convened a meeting on Tuesday to find a solution,’’ said the sub-collector. The estate management said the tea industry has been going through a severe crisis. The company was forced to reduce the bonus from 20 per cent to 10 per cent this year due to the fall in the profit. The company said the decision to reduce the bonus was taken after consulting the trade union leaders. The company incurred a fall in its income by 68 percent in 2014-’15 compared to the previous year. In the past year, the company’s profit plunged to Rs 4.2 crore owing to the international fall in the prices of tea. The decision to provide 10 percent of bonus was taken in the annual meeting of the company, it said. The KDHP has 13,000 workers in its rolls, most of them women engaged in plucking tea leaves. The workers have 68 per cent of the share of the KDHP, while 18 per cent is held by Tata Tea. The remaining 14 per cent is held by a trust and others. Sources said the ordinary workers have only 300 shares each with a face value of Rs 10. At the same time, the officers in the company own a major part of the shares given to the workers. Hence, workers were missing the sentiments that they were co-owners of the company. When Tata Tea divested its stake, the estate was running at an annual loss of Rs 8 crore. However, changing fortunes in the tea sector in the second half of the last decade improved the situation. In 2009, the KDHP had made a profit of Rs 41 crore. In the earlier years after the formation of the KDHP, the company had claimed that making the workers part of the firm has given them a greater sense of responsibility. However, the revisit of crisis in the tea sector changed the situation and turned the ordinary workers hostile against the management. Kerala’s tea planters say hit by ‘worst crisis in 100 years’ By ET Bureau | 29 May, 2015, 02.22AM IST KOCHI: Hit by a slump in prices of tea and rubber, the plantation industry in Kerala has suggested a series of measures including a three year moratorium on taxes, a single window clearance system for diversification projects under the permission to use 5% land for activities other than plantations and purchase of one lakh kg of tea a week from Kochi auctions by the Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation (KSCSC). The Association of Planters of Kerala (APK) said the tea industry in the state is going through one of the worst crisis faced in the past 100 years of its existence. The average auction price realised by tea produced from Kerala in the current financial year is Rs 95.59 per kg when the cost of production is hovering above Rs 120 per kg. For every kg of Kerala tea sold in the auction market, the producer is suffering a loss of Rs 25 per kg. Even though the average price of Kerala tea for the year 2015 is Rs 95.59 per kg, the actual price realised by the grower is less as nearly 90% of tea produced in Kerala is CTC grade whose average price is only Rs 93.75 per kg. The large tea producers like Kanan Devan Hill Plantations, Harrisons Malayalam etc., who are known to carry out cultural operations meticulously, are forced to curtail cultural operations to a large extent due to the severe cash flow crunch. Some of the estates have decided to extend the plucking rounds in order to reduce the cost and also the quantity of production, APK chairman C Vinayaraghavan said. The small and medium tea growers, who sell the green leaf directly to tea factories, started abandoning the operations altogether. Trouble brewing for southern India's tea industry Rebecca Bundhun February 25, 2013 MUNNAR // In Kerala's tea country, meandering mountain roads pass through rolling green valleys lined with thousands of neatly manicured tea bushes. Distant groups of brightly dressed tea pickers look like mere specks bobbing in the sea of lush greenery, while tourists snap pictures or simply gaze in awe at the countryside around the hill station of Munnar. But beyond the seemingly perfect, picturesque landscape of this southern Indian state's tea industry, troubles are brewing. Tea estate managers and other industry sources in Kerala describe a sector struggling amid soaring labour costs and unfavourable weather patterns, while the rivalry from China and other tea growing nations looms large. "Costs are spiralling," says JDurairaj, the assistant director of advisory services at the Upasi Tea Research Foundation's regional centre in Munnar. "China, the way in which they are growing, is really threatening. Particularly in Kerala, the wages are very high compared to other planting districts across India. The tea price in the auction is not going up at the same level of the input cost or the labour cost." Last month, six of the major tea producing countries - India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Rwanda, Malawi and Kenya- agreed to set up the International Tea Producers Forum, essentially a tea cartel, to try to control prices to some extent and promote the industry. But with tea being perishable and varieties of tea varying dramatically, experts say that such a cartel has little chance of operating in a similar way to how the major oil-producing countries run Opec, despite widespread fears that the cost of a cup of tea will escalate. "I'm not sure how far it's going to be successful," says Mr Durairaj, explaining that countries such as Indonesia produce cheaper teas than the subcontinent. In the south of India, including Kerala, there are other forces at work that would be beyond the control of the tea cartel. Adverse weather conditions, including frost and poor rainfall, last year contributed to a 17.3 per cent decline in exports from south India over the January to March period to 14.4 million kilogrammes and a 21.8 per cent drop in the value to 1.34 billion rupees (Dh90.6 million), according to official figures. This prompted a 4.2 per cent decline in India's overall tea production in the first seven months of last year to 470.8 million kg compared with the same period a year earlier. "The industry is in a pretty bad position," says Appu Abraham, the assistant manager of Harrisons Malayalam's 373-hectare Lockhart tea estate in Munnar, which is expected to produce 3,670 tonnes of raw green leaf tea in the current financial year. The estate produces its tea for export, with the Middle East, particularly the UAE, being its main market. Wages of plantation workers have rocketed to about 310 rupees a day, including a minimum wage and all the benefits that the state government demands that employees are paid. The basic wage in south India's tea estates rose to 183.45 rupees last year compared with 77.84 rupees in 2002, according to figures from Upasi. The Lockhart estate has managed its rising costs by cutting down on labour. Over the past decade it has almost halved its number of workers from about 840 in 2002 to 456 last year. "Every year we'll reduce the workforce by about 5 to 6 per cent," Mr Abraham says. In regions in the north-east such as Assam, plantations could often command more than double the price for their tea and could pay their workers less than half the wages that would be paid in Kerala, he says. The tea industry in Kerala is trying hard to modernise its operations by adding tea picking machines that would allow it to reduce its labour force and increase production.