Mr Atwoli, please give way to tea plucking machines

By Kipkirui K’Telwa

The decision by tea labourers affiliated to the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU) to protest against the ongoing mechanisation of tea production is misplaced.

Since the twin advents of industrial and agrarian revolutions, machines have always replaced human labour with devastating effects but mankind has learn to come to terms with it.

When faxing machines came, governments were reluctant to send the messengers home. But who needs the messenger to deliver a memo when there are emails and intranets? More quarry and construction jobs were lost when explosives and earthmoving machines descended on the quarries as construction industry soared. But more skilled and specialised personnel took over jobs that emerged from the revolution.

How many axe and panga-wielding workers lost their jobs when men with power saws descended on the timber-generating forests? How many messengers, tea girls/boys, typists, secretaries and even gardeners lost their jobs when firms installed tea and water dispensers or outsourced services?

Therefore the contempt shown towards this small-motorised machine, operated by two people to prune or plucks tea bushes should be toned down.

Mechanised tea plucking is fast, hence labourers can work for shorter period of time but earn more income and use the extra time to either rest or engage in other income generating chores. Many times, mechanised tea plucking ends by 11am.

While a worker who is housed, provided with water, security, schools and other social amenities can pluck an average of 50kg of green tea leaves per day, a single tea-plucking machine, operated by two people under optimum conditions, can pluck up to 3,000kg of green leaves.

This means one machine can replace 60 people.

The workers’ argument that machine-plucked tea is of poor quality is hollow. It is not the worker, but the master, who determines the quality and even quality of tea to be produced. Workers are paid per kilogramme of green tea leaves plucked not per quality of tea processed.

Two years ago, Cotu secretary general Francis Atwoli urged tea workers to burn machines if plantation owners went ahead and introduced them. Should bank tellers also burn ATMs to save their jobs?

The writer ([email protected]) is Sub Editor, The Standard Online

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