International Labor Organization
(ILO) defines plantation as: . any
agricultural undertaking regularly employing hired workers which is
situated in the tropical or subtropical regions and which is mainly
concerned with the cultivation of production for commercial purposes
of coffee, tea, sugar-cane, rubber, bananas, cocoa, coconuts, groundnuts,
cotton, tobacco, fibers (sisal, jute, and hemp), citrus, palm oil, cinchona
or pineapple; it does not include family or small scale-holding producing
for local consumption and not regularly employing hired workers.
Pathetic ! Pathetic !
RM 325 minimum monthly wage after 52 years of struggle.
Sunday 05/27/2001 3:40:42am R.VIDYANANTHAN
BATU PAHAT ,JOHOR
WHEN WE ARE ONE AND UNITED WE WILL BE A STRONGER SOCIETY.
Malaysia's cheap pesticide
sprayers pay with health
By R Mageswary
Asia Times Online ......According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
some 37,000 cases of cancer occur annually due to exposure to pesticides.
Various reports in recent WHO journals also reveal that 25 million agricultural
workers in developing countries suffer an episode of pesticide poisoning
each year.
The daily wage for plantation workers under the collective agreement
and real daily wage.
1968
1972
1976
1979
1986
1990
1995
1999
2000
Daily wage(RM)
3.10
3.20
3.60
4.30
7.90
8.75
10.40
11.50
CPI
100
106
148
168
227
247
300
348
Real Wage
3.10
3.02
2.43
2.56
3.48
3.54
3.47
3.30
Calculated by the support committee
for plantation workers after taking into account the inflation rate
measured by CPI (Consumer Price Index).
Source: Bank Negara report.
National
Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW)
1954
Amalgamation of all the small plantation unions
Represents:
Plantation workers in the manual,
semi skilled categories of workers in Peninsular Malaysia
Memebership:
50,000 (mainly Indians)
Objective:
Collective bargaining, Industrial
relations, projects and programmes for the improvement of the quality
of life of plantation workers especially with regard to education,
housing and health of members and their children.
President:
Narayanasamy. A
Address:
P.O.Box 73, 46700 Petaling Jaya.
Telephone:
7782-7622, 7782-7718, 7782-7861
P. P. Narayanan held tight control as General
Secretary from 1954 till 1993.
"With dwindling
membership and loss of what little influence it had in the past, NUPW
is now staring at its own demise in the future.
Plantation
workers union slammed for failures by Ajinder Kaur
Whether the NUPW can really champion the rights of plantation
workerstoday remains doubtful.....(more)
Toil of the migrant women
.....Women comprised one fifth of the total labour force of Malaya
in 1931, of which 19% were Chinese and 22% Indian. Agriculture was
the largest user of Chinese (53%) and Indian (84%) female labour.
Rubber cultivation alone employed 70% of Indian women and 29% of the
Chinese women. Besides all the work they did outside their households,
most of them also worked in their own households and towards the formation
of the family.
Total estates and
workers involved in the conversion of estates into other development
purposes
States
# of Estates
# of workers
Selangor
13
1,126
Perak
11
214
Kelantan
3
94
Kedah
10
1,406
Negeri Sembilan
11
297
Malacca
11
345
Pahang
4
383
Johor
24
936
Total
87
4,801
Labor Force
Rubber Tappers
23,000
General Workers
28,000
Palm Oil Mill Workers
11,063
Foreign contract workers
116,000
1,202 estates in the country covers a total
of 3.5 million hectares
Workers Struggle
Bukit Tinggi Estate,
Klang
68 workers lost their
jobs as well as their homes when this estate was sold for RM 186 million.
These workers are requesting:
Monetary compensation of RM 1000 per year of service.
Alternate housing - 3 room terrace house at RM 25,000.
Settlement through dialogue.
Bukit Tinggi Cattle Rearers
13 families have been rearing
cattle in Bukit Tinggi for the past 50 years. They have about 800
head of cattle and goats at present. Eviction order has been given.
Strathisla Estate, Perak
4 years of struggle paid off.
On 13/0502, a consent agreement was recorded in the Ipoh High Court
between State owned Corporation and 20 former workers:
20 workers were given 45 X 80 feet housing lot free of charge.
RM 650 per year of service.
7 acres of land for resiting the school and temple.
This man brought rubber seeds from Brazil in
1876.
In
front of the tree we can see him; behind it you know la, so how
can the minister make a stand or support monthly salary:-Primary
Industries Minister Lim Keng Yaik
Mariammah with 6
children toiled 20 years in Kamiri Estate, Perak. Her retrenchment benefit: US $ 2,640
(Source: Ladang
Kamiri(62), Div. No. 1 Data Dec 99)
Estate workers lodge
police reports against Guthrie ............the manager gave
orders that the "drains in the vicinity of the houses of the
retrenched workers should not be cleaned; nor the grass around their
houses cut; or rubbish collected; and that their septic tanks allowed
to remain in disrepair".
Malaysian Agricultural Producers
Association (MAPA) ......Represents 184 companies
having 461 estates.
'It's
a Form of Slavery'
The suffering classes -- plantation workers
Asia Week.... Malaysia's plantation workers -- over half of whom are
ethnic Indian -- are its most abject citizens. Their wages are pitiful,
their housing wretched, their children's education lacking and their
health care negligible.
Fed Up,
Rubber Workers Rise in Protest
By Anil Netto, IPS
4 May 1999.....Shanmugavalli Rajagopal, 43, is one determined woman.
Retrenched as a rubber tapper in July, she has been asked to vacate
her plantation house.
1,202 estates in the country covers a total
of 3.5 million hectares
In
front of the tree we can see him; behind it you know la, so how
can the minister make a stand or support monthly salary:-