Determinants of absenteeism in tea plantation workers (Case study in selected tea estate in Badulla)
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Date
2015
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Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Absenteeism is a common problem in many industrial units, small or big, private or Government. It can be defined as a single day of missed work (Martocchio&Jimeno 2003), an individual’s lack of physical presence at a given location and time when there is a social expectation for him or her to be there (Martocchio& Harrison, 1993) or non-attendance of employee for scheduled work (Gibson 1966, john 1978). Concerning tea sector in Sri Lanka, chronic absenteeism is one of the major problems which may lead to out-migration in the long run (Institute of Social Development, 2008). The labour situation on plantations has gone from one of surplus to deficit, with an annual decline at the rate of 10% – 20% of the workforce (Institute of Social Development, 2008). This has caused the privatized large-scale plantation or estate to afflict with low productivity and high cost of production which resulted for continuous low profit margins (Institute of Social Development, 2008). Sri Lankan tea production is mainly concentrated into seven regions and Uva region is having nine sub regions. Among these, Telbadde estate is the largest entity in Badulla/Demodera/Hali-Ela sub region (Sri Lanka Tea Board). According to the estate reports, Telbadde estate has one of the largest working populations in this region as well as high rate of absenteeism. As the absenteeism has become problematic to the estate in the short run as well as long run, this study attempts primarily to identify the factors affecting the short run absenteeism.
Methodology
There are 161 holdings in estate sector all over the Badulla district (Statistical Information on Plantation Crops, 2012). Among them one of the largest entities is Telbadde estate employing 1346 workers with 464.50 ha of land extent. This estate manly consists with six divisions. COBO and Lower divisions are the farthest while Upper and West-Morland are the nearest divisions to the estate office.
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Keywords
Agriculture, Export Agriculture, Tea Industrials, Tea Technology, Labour Service, Social Sciences