Two MPs have opposed a decision by tea firms to reduce payment for tea pluckers from Sh5 to Sh2 per kilo of harvested tea.
Ainamoi MP Sylvanus Maritim and Nelson Koech (Belgut) spoke as a workers' union urged more county assemblies in tea-growing regions to impose levies on tea companies to control mechanised tea harvesting.
“We are not going to allow the exploitation of tea harvesters by multi-national tea companies, one of which has for the past one week revised its payments by slashing Sh3 from the provision payment rate," said Mr Maritim.
“We are giving the multi-national tea companies a week to negotiate with us and the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU). We are not going to accept the fact that multi-national tea companies want to revise the payment downwards."
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Mr Koech said they would not allow the tea companies to import tea-plucking machines "in preparation to arbitrarily fire farm employees".
“We are going to join KPAWU in resisting the tea-plucking machines,” he said.
Maritim petitioned Labour Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani to prepare a comprehensive report on the machines.
“We want to know the health implications and how many hours in a week should the tea harvester pull the machines. The women are already complaining,” he said.
Over the years, the companies have imported tea-plucking machines that have replaced an estimated 80,000 workers.
Mersherk Khisa, the KPAWU assistant secretary general, said they were concerned by the mass lay-offs.
“In some companies, the tea-plucking machines have been deployed to do 80 per cent of the work. Some do not even have serious corporate social responsibility programmes.
The only way they would have given back would have been through the employment of local residents,” said Mr Khisa.
