COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) have signed a new collective agreement with labour unions to increase estate worker minimum daily wages to Rs730, saying earnings have been linked to productivity for the first time.
Workers will be paid an additional productivity incentive of Rs25 per kilogram for green leaf harvested above the estate or divisional norm, the Planters Association of Ceylon (PA), which represents RPCs, said in a statement. That means, if workers pluck an additional 7kg a day, it would raise their daily wage to Rs975.
“The productivity incentive structure that the PA has championed for many years is the most pragmatic and mutually beneficial method of improving labour productivity, while ensuring that increased wages are made to be financially viable,” the statement said.
“Through the inclusion of this additional incentive, we have been able to effectively expand the upper limit of what our field employees are capable of earning, while at the same time providing them with a meaningful incentive to improve productivity,” PA Chairman Sunil Poholiyadde said.
“It is well known that Sri Lanka’s rates of productivity are among the lowest of all tea producing economies, and if this industry is to survive, this trend must be reversed as soon as possible.”
