Tea Pickers vs Machines

The machine vs workers controversy in the tea sector continues to intensify. The week long strike by tea plantation workers shows no signs of abating, following a hardline stance taken by labour unions. Under the umbrella of the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union-KPAWU, the workers have vowed to continue with their strike over the increasing use of tea plucking machines, which they fear will render them jobless as producers cut costs, our reporter Wanjiru Gaitho sought to find out the challenges even as COTU announced a 7 day strike notice.

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News & Politics

Tags:

• Tea
• Pickers
• vs
• Machines
• kenyacitizentv
• citizen
• tv
• kenya
• news

[harkiratssidhu]

"Wage structure:– we have worked out an incentive system that ensures that there is :

a. share in gains by the machine operators & company (the workers should have the potential to earn at least 30% higher than hand pluckers)

b. recovery of cost of investment

c. recovery of the cost of fuel

It is crucial that it must be a win-win for the workers & company. " If this is the principle & it is transparent, the workers are only too willing to use harvesters

[nedatronics]

@JohnGitau I think she's fine

[JohnGitau]

Wanjru Gaitho, changamka when reading the reports, you make me want to sleep.....all the same, these machine are a sure way of sending many tea-pickers home!