CPRM to demand wage hike for tea workers

SNS, DARJEELING, 3 MAY 2013: Senior Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxist (CPRM) leader Govind Chhetri today said the party would raise the demand to the state government to increase tea workers’ wages while celebrating the 195th birth anniversary of Karl Marx, the theoretical founder of Communism, on 5 May in Darjeeling.

The meeting would be held at Judge Bazaar in Darjeeling town. “The demand for wage hike for the tea workers is in consonance with the Constitutional provisions meant for the welfare of the tea plantation workers,” the CPRM leader said.

Referring to the GTA Chief Bimal Gurung’s demand to hike the minimum wages from Rs 90 to Rs 113, he said his party supported and appreciated his stance on the matter.

“Yet, we feel he should have demanded Rs 150 per day be given to the workers. This would be the right demand, given the plight of the brew workers here in the Hills,” Mr Chhetri said.  

“The figure raised by Mr Gurung does not fit in with the spiralling expenses involved in day-to-day living. It is the right of the tea workers to demand at least Rs 150 per day,” he added.

Notably, wages of the tea plantation workers are hiked every three years. Last time in 2011 just before the state’s Assembly election,  the minimum wage was hiked from Rs 67 to 90.