The National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW) vowed to hold a two-day strike nationwide after talks between the union and the Malayan Agricultural Producers Association (Mapa) collapsed last weekend.

The strike plan has received the support of the Plantation Workers Support Committee (PWSC), a coalition of NGOs that struggles for the rights of estate workers.

"Before the election, the ruling party made all sorts of promises including the monthly wages issue and housing for plantation workers. Today, these promises have yet to be fulfilled," lamented PWSC coordinator K. Ramah at a press conference in Klang today.

He said that exactly three months had passed since the polls, yet nothing concrete had been achieved to resolve the matter. He renewed the call for Parliament to introduce new legislation to protect the interest of plantation workers

More specifically, PWSC wants the government to make into law the provision of a monthly salary and a proper housing scheme for all estate workers.

The organisation had vowed last December that it would stage a press conference on the 29 th of each month to get Cabinet ministers and MPs to come clean with their election promises.

At its third monthly press conference today, PWSC, which is made up of Community Development Centre, Suara Warga Pertiwi, Alaigal, Community Front and Kumpulan Kemajuan Masyarakat, said it was time the government intervened to revive the failed talks between NUTP and Mapa.

It was reported in New Straits Times today that Human Resources Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn would be meeting representatives of NUPW and Mapa in the next one or two weeks to resolve the workers' demand for monthly wages.

Ramah also urged the Barisan Nasional leadership to stop making promises on improving the plight of plantation workers.

"The MIC and other parties must stop passing resolutions because it has been proven that nothing is implemented," he said.

MIC chief S. Samy Velu announced last Friday that the MIC Supreme Council had passed six resolutions urging the intervention of the government in the issue. He added that the matter would be brought up in this week's Cabinet meeting.

Samy, who is also Works Minister, was responding to the growing practice of estates owners in converting rubber estates into the more lucrative oil-palm plantations. He said that 4,500 rubber tappers had already been displaced with previous conversions.

PWSC estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 estate workers may lose their jobs and homes within the next two years, as the conversion continued. It added that government home ownership policies implemented since 1971 have not resolved the woes of plantation workers.

The plight of plantation workers has remained a sore thumb in industrialising Malaysia.

It has been argued that Malaysian plantations till today, are run like the colonial days. Some 112,800 workers in over 1,000 plantations are still working under a century-old wage system in which they earn a daily wage of RM12 without yearly increments and bonuses.

This is despite that three generations of plantation workers have toiled in these estates and contributed to the nation's economy.

Employers have also raked in exorbitant profits through their hard work. Yet, these workers have continued living under poverty with an average wage of only 60 per cent of those working in factories.

Figures in last year's Bank Negara Annual Report indicated that the real wage of plantation workers had decreased in 1999 as compared to 1995.

Indeed, plantation workers today are poorer than they were 10 years ago. However, attempts to demand for a monthly wage by these workers have proved futile over the years.

A few years ago, PWSC launched a signature campaign calling on the government to implement a monthly wage and make improvements in the current housing scheme.

The campaign eventually paid off in January last year when the National Land Finance Cooperative Society (NLFCS) became the first plantation to implement the monthly wage scheme for its workers. Instead of daily wages, NLFCS offered a monthly wage of RM380 along with added incentives to earn more.

However, other plantations have balked at implementing similar measures.