The plantation wage demand remained deadlocked yesterday with the Regional Plantation Companies moving their offer up slightly to Rs. 370 a day on Friday from Rs. 360 the day before and the unions standing fast on their demand of Rs. 500.

Meanwhile the workers maintained their blockade of made tea deliveries from upcountry estates to Colombo and hinted that they will extend this action to plantations in the South.

"There’s tea in the pipeline for the next three weeks,’’ a trader said. ``After that the future is very uncertain.’’

The picture varied in different estates with workers going slow in some plantations, working very little in others and maintaining normal levels of production elsewhere. The constant is that they are not allowing made tea to be moved from the estates to the auctions in Colombo. But there have been no moves to break the blockade.

The workers have begun looking forward to government intervention for a ``peaceful settlement’’ with Mr. S. Ramanathan of the Joint Plantation Trade Union Conference saying there must be a settlement by Deepavali on Oct. 17.

The CWC’s R. Yogarajan said dismissed a report that Minister Arumugam Thondaman, the CWC leader, had stormed out of a meeting with representatives of the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs).

Yogarajan dismissed claims of a production decrease after privatization saying that the figures indicated the production of 220 million kilos of tea by 420,000 plantation workers in 1992 although in 2007, half that work force produced 420 million kilos of tea.

"This shows that worker productivity has increased although the management keeps harping about productivity all the time,’’ he said.

``Levels of re-planting has been low on the RPCs. There must be timely application of fertilizer and other inputs. How can the workers pluck tea if there’s no flush?’’ he asked.

While tea prices have hit unprecedented highs at present, production has dipped and Sri Lanka is current 40 million kilos short.

``The global tea supply is 75 to 80 mn. kilos short with Sri Lanka accounting for half of that,’’ a tea trader said. ``On the positive side, prices are right up but production is an issue.’’