IN Sri Lanka over 75,000 workers are employed on the rubber plantations and are viciously exploited. There are at least 200 plantations, we visited one, the Sundarland plantation, near Eheliyagoda.
This estate is now owned by an Indian company. Until 1972 it was owned by a British firm.
All the plantations were nationalised in 1972 but sold off to private employers in 1988. The workforce in this area is 90 per cent Sinhalese, and 10 per cent Tamils.
Life for rubber workers is hard and short. The work is backbreaking and dirty. The salaries are low. The average working day is from 7am until 2.30pm. Workers walk for miles through forests collecting the liquid rubber.
To get their quota of 7 kilos per day workers must cut tracks in at least 150 trees. Then the collecting bowls (half a coconut shell) must be secured to the trees. Each tree is collected from several times during the day and the liquid rubber is emptied into a bucket. The buckets in turn are emptied into containers which hold 20 kilos. These containers are then carried on workers’ heads through the forest to an arranged point on the road for collection.
It is like this every day. An endless dirty, primitive and backbreaking slog. Each day, workers must collect 7 kilos of liquid rubber, and are paid 125 Rupees. If they collect more than 7 kilos they get 20 Rupees a kilo, but if they collect less than 7 kilos they receive no pay for that day. There are 120 workers on the estate, comprising 40 families who work and live on the estate.
Mr Mohanrajah has worked for 15 years on the plantation and has two children. He works in the factory and also does other jobs such as clearing undergrowth and digging.
‘When I work a 20 day month I get 2,000 Rupees. I can’t manage to live with my salary of 2,000 Rupees per month, so other family members work outside the plantation. If I could get a salary of 4,000 Rupees I could manage my life. If a worker has an accident at work they are treated very badly. Three years ago I lost the tip of my finger in a roller in the factory. I got one month’s salary and 1,500 Rupees towards medical bills.’
Mrs Selaimah is a retired rubber worker now 77 years of age. She started work at 13 and retired at 60.
She described her life on the plantation. ‘When I started work we earned 15 Rupees a month and it took six months to learn the job. We had to do everything, all jobs, and the clearing and digging. My salary when I retired was 98 Rupees per day for 7 kilos. After working 47 years I only got a pension of 20,000 Rupees, one lump sum payment and no more.’
Mrs Sri Yanpremamanike has three children and also lives on the estate. ‘My husband works as a driver and as such is a member of staff. He gets paid 6,400 Rupees per month with overtime. The basic salary is 4,500 Rupees and overtime is not voluntary. He can do a day’s work, come home and then get called back in at night. He is at the beck and call of management.
‘As staff, my husband is entitled to 2,000 Rupees towards medical fees, after three months employment. But we do not have enough money to live on. We run out of food and essentials each month.
‘Every month we have to pay back 4,000 Rupees to the shop we get credit from, leaving 500 Rupees to live on. The interest charged by the food shop is 20 per cent.
‘We can’t manage, we can’t even save 10 Rupees, we are getting deeper and deeper into debt. Today my husband has gone to his staff union to complain about his salary. His union, the Ceylon Estates Staff Union, collects 150 Rupees from my husband each month for membership fees.
‘Our houses are overcrowded and lack facilities. There are two families comprising nine people living in two rooms. We had to build the kitchens ourselves because there were none.’
Workers in the gem industry in Sri Lanka risk their lives on a daily basis. They only receive payment when they find a precious gem. It is common not to receive any money whatsoever for three or six months or even longer.
The conditions are very dangerous, working in tunnels 70 foot underground. They can spend a whole working day standing in water, sometimes working with water up to their hips.
We visited a gem site in the same area, at a place called Batukotwa near Eheliyagoda. There are 40 men working at this site, from young teenagers to older men. The whole district has over 75,000 employed in the gem industry. Workers at this site were reluctant to talk as their employer was present and they could be sacked at any moment.
The main reason why workers risk life and limb every day is because they get meals supplied by the employer. Poverty and deprivation is so prevalent in their lives that they would not have anything to eat if they were not working.
In the production of gems, the prospective boss must first select and buy the land he wants to dig in. He must then buy a licence from the Department of Gems, which costs 15,000 Rupees. This licence allows him to proceed to hire a workforce. It also allows him to endanger these workers’ lives, injure them through negligence or neglect, with no comeback. He also provides tools, machinery, diesel fuel and other bits and pieces.
Judging by the state of the machinery and tools at this site, both had been around for decades. The winch being operated over one of the holes must have been at least 200 years old.
It is not important whether gems are big or small, what is important is the colour. If they find one which is light and blue it will be valuable, possibly worth about 300,000 Rupees. The last time a really good one was found at this site was three years ago.
If a gem is found, the workforce, at this site – 40 workers in all – get one sixth of its price shared between them all.
The digging starts with soggy soil being removed from the hole by baskets. As the hole gets deeper and deeper, more and more men are used passing the buckets along. They go down around 70 feet on average, and have to constantly pump out water as it accumulates.
The ancient pumps used for this might have some use in a museum, but under conditions where workers lives are dependant on them, their use is criminal. After workers have dug down to 70 feet, they then spread out in all directions excavating tunnels. Water and filth are everywhere, and that is the working environment day after day.
Accidents caused by roof and side soil collapses and flooding are common. Once you are underground it’s touch and go whether you get out alive. Some workers have small oxygen masks but after a serious collapse or flood they die before they are dug out.
To get to the ripe old age of 40 is rare and it is impossible not to get injured repeatedly. When workers get injured, even with open wounds, they must still work. We saw injuries caused by stones falling on workers down in the hole, but they must carry on.
In Sri Lanka there is no future for the working class, whether Tamil or Sinhalese, under capitalism.
What is required to make a future is a united working class, organised by a really revolutionary party, to carry through a socialist revolution.
