Export data masks the human toll: Tea shipments hit 23 million kilograms by June 2025, earning $743 million – an 11 per cent volume rise, with packaged varieties at 46 per cent.
A deepening crisis is unfolding in the mist-shrouded hills of Sri Lanka’s central highlands, where the nation’s world-renowned Ceylon Tea is plucked leaf by laborious leaf. Over 1.5 million estate workers, predominantly from the marginalised Malaiyaha Tamil community, continue to endure subhuman conditions despite repeated government pledges for wage relief. As of late 2025, the promised daily minimum wage of 1,700 Sri Lankan rupees (LKR) – a 70 per cent hike from the 2021 baseline of LKR 1,000 – remains largely unimplemented, trapping families in cycles of poverty, malnutrition, and child labour. This impasse, fuelled by industry resistance and political delays, threatens the sustainability of an export sector that generated $1.3 billion in foreign exchange last year, underscoring a stark paradox: the workers who fuel Sri Lanka’s economic lifeline are its most forgotten.
The struggle traces back to colonial-era exploitation, when Indian migrants were brought as indentured labourers to vast tea plantations. Today, descendants of those “coolies” – mostly Hindu women who shoulder 70 per cent of the plucking workload – face daily targets of 18-25 kilograms per worker, often unachievable amid aging bushes and erratic weather.
Current earnings hover around LKR 1,350 plus sporadic incentives, far below the LKR 2,321 needed for a family of four to afford basics like rice, medicine, and schooling, according to a 2024 University of Peradeniya study. Inflation, which peaked at 70 per cent during the 2022 economic meltdown, has eroded purchasing power, forcing many to ration meals or skip milk in their tea – a bitter irony for tea workers.
Protests erupted mid-November, with over 1,000 labourers marching in cities like Nuwara Eliya and Badulla, brandishing symbolic coffins of opposing politicians. “For the first time in history, the government provided a salary increment of 200 rupees. Opposition politicians fail to understand the hardships,” fumed Mahohari, a plucker from Bogawantalawa estate.
Rights activist Sunil Hapuarachchi decried the “slave-like conditions” persisting for decades, marked by poverty, illiteracy, and stigma that haunts workers’ children. Yet, as 2025 dawned under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist National People’s Power (NPP) administration, hope flickered briefly with budget allocations for direct subsidies. By September, however, negotiations stalled, leaving unions like the Lanka Jathika Estate Workers’ Union threatening strikes ahead of the 2026 fiscal year.
Political Standoff and Broken Vows
The wage deadlock exemplifies a century-old pattern of unkept promises. A 1927 Minimum Wages Ordinance, born from early 20th-century inquiries, was diluted by planter resistance. Fast-forward to 2018: Massive youth-led protests at Galle Face Green forced a tripartite agreement, but courts annulled hikes favouring employers. The 2023 Hatton Declaration vowed holistic reforms – housing, land rights, education – yet two years on, delivery is scant. In May 2024, President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government gazetted LKR 1,700 as the minimum, inclusive of LKR 350 productivity bonuses, effective June. Plantation giants petitioned the Court of Appeal, which refused a stay, but implementation faltered amid claims of “financial ruin.”
Under Dissanayake’s NPP, elected in 2024 on pro-worker rhetoric, a LKR 5 billion taxpayer-funded subsidy was earmarked to bridge the gap for private Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs). Opposition lawmakers slammed it as a regulatory breach, demanding audits by the Bribery Commission. “This could open floodgates for all private sectors,” they argued, igniting worker fury.
A June 2024 Labour Tribunal, hearing “heartbreaking” testimonies, ordered immediate enforcement and a special committee for sustainable structures. By September 2025, a Ministry of Plantation meeting yielded only vague commitments to productivity-linked models, with Deputy Minister Sundaralingam Pradeep noting RPCs’ “challenges” but no firm timeline. Unions decry the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) for historical collusion with employers, diluting worker voices.
International scrutiny amplifies the outrage. An October 2024 tribunal, convened by the Ceylon Workers Red Flag Union with judges from India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, left panellists “horrified.” Testimonies revealed leech-infested fields, wasp attacks sans first aid, and families surviving on plain tea. Justice Shiranee Tilakawardane called it a “sub-human life without dignity,” urging bans on unfair practices like inflating targets or casualising labour. UN experts and the World Food Programme report child undernutrition surging to 17 per cent in estates, with 16 per cent of families food-insecure – double the national average.
Dire Conditions and Human Rights Violations
Beyond wages, a September 2024 ABC News investigation exposed systemic failures on Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade-certified estates, home to brands like Twinings and Lipton. Workers lack field toilets – terrain excuses ring hollow amid colonial-era “line houses” crumbling without repair. Drinking water is intermittent, outages lasting weeks; child labour thrives in private gardens, with under-16s dropping out to supplement incomes, breaching ILO conventions. “Auditors never speak to us,” one plucker confided, questioning certification integrity. The Plantation Human Development Trust (PHDT), a government body, shoulders housing duties but underfunds them, rendering Fairtrade standards moot.
Health crises compound the misery: Snakebites and respiratory ills from chemical exposure go untreated, as clinics are understaffed. Women, comprising the workforce’s backbone, face gender-specific burdens – menstruation without facilities, sexual harassment, and widowhood from male out-migration.
A 2024 WFP survey found one in four estate families skipping meals, with female-headed households hit hardest. Child labour, though illegal, persists; kids forgo school for “light duties,” per ILO allowances, but interference with education is rampant. Dilmah’s MJF Foundation funnels profits into schools, yet systemic gaps endure. Certifiers like Rainforest Alliance pledge investigations, potentially suspending non-compliant estates, while Fairtrade’s FLOCERT handles complaints via hotlines. Brands vow remediation, but critics demand enforcement over audits.
Export data masks the human toll: Tea shipments hit 23 million kilograms by June 2025, earning $743 million – an 11 per cent volume rise, with packaged varieties at 46 per cent. Iraq and Libya ramped imports, yet worker attrition soars. Permanent pluckers dwindled from 400,000 to 140,000 via mechanisation and contracts sans pensions, aging the workforce and slashing productivity to 18 kg/day – half India’s rate.
Proposed Reforms and Industry Warnings
As deadlock persists, alternatives emerge. The Advocata Institute champions revenue-sharing: Assigning land plots to workers as “self-governing partners,” earnings tie to auction proceeds split with RPCs. Pilots at Talawakelle Plantations yielded double incomes, per Tea Research Institute data, boosting quality and viability. “Ditch attendance-based wages that breed inefficiency,” urges Advocata, decrying Sri Lanka’s status as the priciest black tea producer. It slams subsidies as “ad-hoc bandaids” burdening taxpayers, advocating land titles for stability – a nod to historical dispossession.
RPCs, via the Planters’ Association, counter that the 70 per cent hike inflates costs 45 per cent, risking quality dips and job losses. Fertiliser and fuel prices quadrupled post-2022, they say, eroding edges over Kenya. A production-based model, per September 2025 talks, could align incentives, but unions fear diluted guarantees. The government eyes hybrid funding, yet delays breed unrest.
In Groundviews’ poignant words, estate wages are “forever promised, never delivered.” With poverty at 24.5 per cent in estates – double pre-crisis levels – reform is imperative. The tribunal’s call echoes: Implement LKR 1,700 now, convene experts, end exploitation. As 2025 closes, tea workers’ resilience sustains Sri Lanka, but without justice, the brew turns toxic.
