Cashew processors plan token stir

‘Wage hike for workers notified bypassing all mandatory norms’

If declaring wage-related strikes in the cashew sector used to be the monopoly of trade unions, the tables have now turned. Employers under the banner of Cashew Processors and Exporters Association have now declared a three-day strike in the sector from March 2.

Secretary of the association K.M. Nazar said the strike was in protest against the allegedly arbitrary manner in which the State government had notified the latest wage hike for cashew workers ‘‘which the industry is unable to bear.’’ He said the wage hike was notified bypassing all mandatory norms.

In the past, cashew sector employers were wary of keeping their factories closed because the government was vested with powers under the Kerala Cashew Factories Acquisition (Amendment) Act to take over such factories. But a Supreme Court order earlier this month had termed relevant sections of the Act unconstitutional.

The association leaders alleged that the government had succumbed to trade union militancy following which the Industrial Relations Committee (IRC) had taken the decision to hike the wages. But as per norms, the IRC decision has to be first notified for hearing objections and then placed before the Minimum Wages Advisory Committee.

The government could formally notify the revised wages only as per the recommendations of that committee. But all those mandatory formalities were bypassed and the government arbitrarily declared a 35 per cent wage hike. He said the employers were not in anyway against a justified wage hike.

The association alleged vote-bank politics on the part of the trade unions as the motive behind such a wage hike. The hike would make cashew processed in Kerala highly uncompetitive in the international markets. Cashew was being processed in various States, and in Vietnam too where the processing rates were affordable to the industry. All competed in the same international kernel markets.

The association leaders called upon the State government to freeze the wage hike and conduct a scientific study into the realities of the sector viv-a-vis the competitors and then decide on the wage hike. The three-day strike declared was a token strike. If the government failed to consider the demands, the association would be forced to declare an indefinite strike, Mr. Nazar said.

- The Hindu