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By B. Sivaram
Among the operations in tea production which lend themselves to a productivity-linked approach in the matter of wages and incentive systems is plucking. Apart from being the most costly component of production, plucking has the advantage that the output of pluckers can easily be measured for the calculation of payment. Once the concept of productivity-linked rewards is accepted, implemented and perfected, it could be extended to other operations. A productivity approach for pluckers cannot, however, be successfully implemented in isolation; it has to be part of a wider package involving a parallel development of the field to generate a bigger crop, thus facilitating its handling by the worker. Some of the field-level prerequisites in this connection are:
-- improving soil conditions through the supply of organic matter and application of chemical fertilizers in the required dosage;
-- modifying the micro-climate to the limited extent possible through shade management and irrigation to combat drought and covering bushes with cheap and locally available materials to protect from frost;
-- maximizing the yield from chemical fertilizer through split application, placement and slow release, and at the same time reserving selected fields for organic manuring so that the leaf harvested from those fields, having been separately manufactured, can be exported at considerably higher prices to discriminating markets;
-- choosing planting material by adopting a portfolio approach to characteristics such as yield, flavour, drought and frost resistance, ease of manufacture and shelf life of the end-product, this approach being helpful in terms of cost control and marketing;
-- ensuring more pluckable shoots for the plucker to harvest by planting bushes more closely -- about 15,000 has been suggested as the optimum per hectare -- so that the "centres" are maximized and, by implication, the "peripheries" are minimized, although it is possible that such dense planting could hinder future efforts towards mechanization;
-- rationalizing and predicting plucking intervals to facilitate advance planning and deployment of workers; for instance, temperature data are used to predict the time taken for the expansion of a leaf in crop shoots and hence to determine plucking intervals -- this concept is called the leaf expansion time (LET) and involves dividing cumulated daytime temperature during the expansion of a leaf by the cumulated temperature in a day during a given season;
-- following a management approach to pruning which will: reduce the "come-back" period to plucking; enable pruning to be undertaken during periods of reduced plucking activity; ensure that product consistency -- an important marketing consideration -- is not at risk because of pruning a smaller area of one or more varieties; time the activity with an eye on the market -- as noted above, it would be a retrograde step if pruning were to reduce the quantity and quality of tea available for sale at a time of high demand and remunerative prices;
-- training the plucking surface -- bushes with a dome, level, wedge shape augment plucker efficiency;
-- integrating plucker intake with field responsiveness; for instance, a plucker assigned to a recently pruned field will, despite the best of efforts, be unable to harvest the quantity plucked by another plucker entrusted with a second or third year field, there is thus a need to maintain morale by giving pluckers a fair mix of fields; another reported feature is that a plucker repeatedly assigned a given set of fields will look after the bushes with greater care and attention, although the time spent in the process could even be the expense of the extra gain in crop.
Having prepared the field to facilitate the introduction of a productivity-linked wage system, the next step is to secure the cooperation and agreement of the workers. Experience has shown that the key factors in this regard are: the simplicity of the scheme; its ease of implementation; evident fairness to both parties; and ensuring a speedy reward.
A brief description of the experience of a productivity incentive scheme for tea pluckers in the State of Tamil Nadu in South India may be useful at this juncture to serve as a guide for similar schemes in South Asia or, indeed, for other plantations in developing countries.
It has been the established practice in the plantation sector in Tamil Nadu for triennial industry-wide wage agreements to be negotiated between the authorized representatives of management and workers, and for the understanding arrived at to be recognized as a formal settlement by the Labour Department of the state government.
Until the 1980s, tea pluckers were paid a fixed daily wage plus a cost-of-living allowance (revised every quarter, based on published index numbers). In return, they had to harvest a minimum quantity of green leaf per day. For any excess quantity harvested above the norm, they were paid a plucking incentive. This was a constant amount per kilogram of leaf but, in due course, the system was refined by having two incentive slabs (categories). The general feeling among management was that the incentive scheme was defective in that the minimum quantity was the same in both the high and lean cropping months, and that the rate of incentive was not attractive to the worker. Accordingly, after collecting monthly data, going back ten years, from over 100 estates, in regard to yields and plucking averages, a scheme was formulated in 1985 by the association of planters and taken up for internal consideration among its members. The initial response from the practising planters was that they were not ready for such a scheme and that it was premature to place it before the trade unions as part of the negotiating package. Over the next three years, the scheme was discussed by management with a view to reaching agreement. Several of them had reservations on the grounds that management who adopted long plucking intervals and were thus able to achieve higher plucking averages, would stand to lose by the scheme. In the light of comments and suggestions, the minimum quantity of leaf to be plucked as well as the incentive slabs and rates were modified, and a compromise was reached within the management camp, it being evident from the calculations that all managements would stand to gain from the proposed incentive system.
During that period, parallel efforts were also under way to explain the scheme to some of the influential trade union leaders and to seek their support in furtherance of a measure which would enhance the earnings of their members. Formal bipartite discussions in this regard were held during 1989 and, after several rounds of negotiations, an agreement was reached in 1990 which was duly endorsed by the Government as being fair and equitable.
The essence of the scheme is that tea estates are classified into four categories depending on the green leaf yield for the month. The base output to be plucked per day and the incentive slabs and rates are different for the four classes. The same scheme is applicable both to hand plucking and to plucking with shears, thereby securing acceptance of the use of tools without payment of a differential wage. The arrangement which took effect from 1 January 1990 had the incentive structure shown in table 7.
Table 7. Productivity incentive scheme for tea pluckers, Tamil Nadu, India
| Yield of green leaf per hectare per month (kg) | Base output
per day (kg) |
Slab (kg) | Incentive rate (Indian rupees per kg) | |||||||
| 1st | 2nd | 1st slab | 2nd slab | |||||||
| 1-40 | 12 | 13-15 | 16+ | 0.26 | 0.31 | |||||
| 401-800 | 14 | 15-20 | 21+ | 0.26 | 0.31 | |||||
| 01-1 600 | 15 | 16-30 | 31+ | 0.26 | 0.31 | |||||
| 1 600+ | 16 | 17-35 | 36+ | 0.26 | 0.31 | |||||
The scheme comprised the following aspects:
(1) The green leaf yield was to be worked out by dividing the field weight of green leaf plucked for the month for the estate by the total area of mature tea; the area would include the pruned/skiffed area as well as the area under "tipping".
(2) Green leaf yield per hectare was to be rounded off to the nearest kilogram.
(3) The base output was not the task as such but only the indicator above which the incentive wage was to be calculated; all pluckers were expected to work normally and diligently for a full day and harvest the maximum output.
(4) On the first working day of each month, the management was to display on the muster notice boards an indication of the probable Base Output applicable for the month, having regard to the yield of the same month in the previous year and the weather conditions, favourable or otherwise. The management could alter the indicated base output at any time during the course of the month or at the close of the month, to take account of changes in the cropping pattern.
(5) For calculating the month's yield, any crop plucked on holidays was to be excluded.
(6) The operation of the scheme was to be reviewed after 12 months for any anomalies in its implementation and working, so that any necessary correction could be made.
(7) A joint implementation committee comprising three representatives each of the employers and workers was to be appointed in all districts to oversee the implementation of the scheme and to examine workers' grievances concerning the correctness of the yield or other parameters.
On renegotiating the scheme three years later, a third incentive slab was incorporated apart and there was an across-the-board improvement in the incentive rates. The revised structure, which took effect from 1 January 1993, is shown in table 8.
Table 8. Revised productivity incentive scheme for tea pluckers, Tamil Nadu, India
| Yield of green leaf per hectare per
month (kg) |
Base output
per day (kg) |
Slab (kg) | Incentive rate (Indian rupees
per kg) | |||||||||||
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 1st slab | 2nd slab | 3rd slab | |||||||||
| 1-400 | 12 | 13-15 | 16-30 | 31+ | 0.27 | 0.35 | 0.40 | |||||||
| 401-800 | 14 | 15-20 | 21-40 | 41+ | 0.27 | 0.35 | 0.40 | |||||||
| 801-1 600 | 15 | 16-30 | 31-50 | 51+ | 0.27 | 0.35 | 0.40 | |||||||
| 1 600+ | 16 | 17-35 | 36-60 | 61+ | 0.27 | 0.35 | 0.40 | |||||||
An evaluation of the scheme indicates that it has been implemented with fairness and transparency and, in the process, has gained credibility in the eyes of the trade unions. The existence of a grievance redressal process has added to the successful working of the scheme. Both management and workers have gained, albeit to a different extent. According to one estimate -- and this comes from a highly productive and well-managed group -- a combination of programmed plucking based on leaf expansion time (LET), selective use of shear harvesters and the adoption of the new incentive system has led to a 36 per cent improvement in the plucking average over the past five years, since the scheme has been in operation. It is also reported by the same group that, as a consequence, 10 per cent of the total leaf harvested during 1994 came from pluckers in the 50 kg plus slab. In terms of incentive earnings, the benefit to pluckers during the five-year period had gone up by 25 per cent.
It is important to point out, however, that workers share in a lower proportion of productivity gains under the scheme. This perception already exists among some of the trade unions and a demand for a larger share for labour is bound to be raised in due course.
It is also important to draw attention to a tactic that labour might adopt. If all the workers were to act in concert and pluck just above the minimum specified quantity, management would have to employ temporary labour to harvest all the available leaf, especially during the high cropping periods. If yields were to increase, more permanent workers would have to be pressed into employment.
In an estate environment, temporary labour -- the source stream for the permanent workforce -- can only be drawn from the resident population, that is, from the families of workers. Under the joint family system, houses need not be allotted to these new recruits and the consequent saving on capital cost is an additional reason for management to recruit members of the families of workers. At the current rates of daily wages and plucking incentives, such temporary employment will mean an increase in total family earnings compared to what the family would have earned had the workers plucked to their full capacity and earned the appropriate incentives. The potential for obtaining permanent employment for a family member is also put at risk. These are important issues in the developing economies of South Asia and elsewhere where unemployment and underemployment are major problems.
Paradoxically, estates are finding it difficult to recruit the required labour force. Possible reasons are the reluctance to take on hard physical work, the spread of education, and migration to cities in pursuit of higher wages and better living standards. In such a situation, workers see the new incentive scheme as an opportunity rather than a threat and have not resisted it.
Two questions arise. First, how is the gain in productivity measured? A simple approach is as follows. Calculate the workdays (and hence, the wages, suitably adjusted for the associated welfare costs, both capital and revenue) assuming labour productivity at the previous level. Deduct from them the actual workdays (and the actual wages, again adjusted for the associated welfare costs). The difference is taken to be the gain in productivity. As is well known, not all the leaf available on the bush is harvested. Under the incentive scheme, there is a better chance that the plucker will harvest the leaf more fully. In other words, the yield will include leaf which would ordinarily not have been plucked. For a true valuation of productivity gain, it would be necessary to add the value of the extra leaf harvested. As estimation of the extra leaf is largely a matter of conjecture, this is not taken into account.
Second, what is a fair share of productivity gain for labour? This again is a matter of opinion and the share accorded to workers in practice depends on the relative bargaining strengths of management and labour. Several productivity agreements have lately been concluded in the region (in manufacturing industries) on the basis of labour getting a sizeable share of the gains from productivity improvement, sometimes as much as 60 per cent. That figure seems to be a fair limit.
Looking ahead, a shortage of plucking labour is clearly foreseeable. At present, such a shortage already exists during the heavy cropping period throughout the sub-continent both in the estate sector and in smallholdings. The resultant unplucked green leaf implies not only a loss of revenue to the producer but also to the nation, bearing in mind that every unsold kilogram of black tea (the equivalent of 4.5 kg of unplucked leaf) means a loss of potential foreign exchange of the order of US$1.80. To prevent such a loss, it is advisable to make selective use of shear harvesters during the rush season; this is already being done in South India and on an experimental scale in Sri Lanka. The industry's fear is that widespread application of shear harvesting would be detrimental to quality. While this is admittedly a valid consideration, a trade-off has to be established between quality and allowing the harvest to go unplucked. Furthermore, one aspect which is invariably overlooked is that the limited use of shear harvesters will improve worker output and reduce costs to the management. Another is that male workers in South Asia who have hitherto viewed plucking as lacking in job enrichment (unlike their counterparts in East Africa), are now reportedly inclined to venture into plucking so long as it involves a combination of quasi-mechanical activity and higher earnings, which the use of shear entails. It is, perhaps, too early for the South Asian countries to graduate to mechanical plucking, which has worked satisfactorily in Japan, Australia and South Africa but not so successfully in Papua New Guinea and Uganda.
In the debate on field productivity improvements, the overwhelming emphasis has been on plucking, so much so that other operations where such gains are necessary and achievable tend to be neglected. One possible approach is to develop a group incentive scheme, the concept being that, in a given operation, for a certain percentage of output above the standard, the corresponding percentage of extra wages would be paid as incentives. These incentive payments would be shared by the individuals in the group, either equally or on a pro rata basis.
An imaginary example will clarify the working of such a group incentive scheme. Take, for instance, the case of pruning where the standard daily task is fixed, say, at 200 bushes. Suppose that this is equivalent to a time-rate wage of Cy 50, where Cy is a currency. A field of 1,400 bushes is to be pruned and the work is assigned to a group of five runners who complete the work in one day. The incentive payable to them will, therefore, be:
Time-rate wage payable to
| 5 pruners @ Cy 50 for 1 day | Cy 250 |
| Standard task to be fulfilled 200 bushes x 5 | 1,000 bushes |
| Task actually completed | 1,400 bushes |
| Percentage increase over standard | 40 % |
| Incentive payable at 40 % of the time-rate wage | Cy 100 (to be shared by five workers) |
Working at the standard task rate, the same number of pruners would have taken about one-and-a-half days to prune 1,400 bushes, resulting in a wage payment of Cy 375. Because of their improved productivity, management will be able to effect a saving of Cy 125 in wage payments and the workers will be able to earn an incentive of Cy 100. A group incentive scheme thus offers a monetary inducement to a group of workers voluntarily to enhance their productivity within prescribed work norms. This approach can be extended to all task-related operations, such as spraying, fertilizing, shade regulation, forking and leaf loading.
The advantages of this concept are: that field operations planned for the year or season can be completed economically and rapidly, so that labour (particularly men workers) can be deployed for plucking during the heavy cropping season; that the recruitment of casual workers can be avoided; that production costs can be controlled; and that a better team spirit and level of responsibility is encouraged.
