About 90 per cent of around 1,000 cashew processing units in Kerala have been shut as their owners resorted to a three-day token strike from Monday to protest against an “unscientific wage hike”. The strike was called by the Cashew Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association. “It is cent per cent successful. Nearly 900 factories employing some 3 lakh workers were fully closed,” P Sundaran, Vice-Chairman, Cashew Export Promotion Council of India (CEPCI), told BusinessLine. He said the government had hiked the wages of the workers by 35 per cent from March 1. The hike had not been done scientifically and a 35 per cent increase would totally raise the wages to around 40 per cent. “It would make the industry unviable. Already, we are faced with a lot of problems. We are not averse to wage revision/increase but it should not be a steep like this. It should be incremental,” a manufacturer said. The processing cost for a bag of 80 kg cashew in Kerala is about `2,500, while it is in the range of `1,000-1,350 in other States. “The current hike will raise the processing cost by an additional `700 a bag,” said Sundaran. The government-owned, supported corporations and co-operatives which employ some 8 per cent of the workers are also burdened by the hike.