Feb 15: Several thousand workers in Sri Lanka's sprawling plantations returned to work on Saturday after unions called off a nine-day-old strike following an agreement on higher wages.But tea industry officials said that many more thousands were still to report for work as district branches of the unions were yet to inform them of the decision to end the strike. "In some plantations most of the workers have returned, but there are still several thousand more who have not. They are still waiting for the unions to tell them to get back," a manager of a tea estate in central Nuwara Eliya hills told Reuters. More than 500,000 plantation workers were on strike since Febraury 5 demanding an increase in their daily wages to Rs 105 from Rs 83. The unions called off the strike, that was threatening to hit Sri Lanka's profitable tea industry, after a meeting with president Chandrika Kumaratunga.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
