Tripartite meeting on wage revision upcoming

Prashant Acharya, EOI, 17 Jun 2014: A tripartite meeting to discuss wage revision of tea garden workers engaged in more than 300 gardens of Darjeeling, the Terai and the Dooars is scheduled Wednesday afternoon at the mini secretariat ‘Uttarkanya’.

Earlier meetings with the Consultative Committee of Planters’ Association (CCPA), the Labour commissioner and trade unions failed as the CCPA maintained silence over the matter. Wednesday’s meeting will be the third one after the agreement ended this March with trade union leaders threatening to launch an aggressive movement if the CCPA does not agree to wage increments this time.

The United Tea Workers Front (UTWF), led by eminent social activist Anuradha Talwar, along with the GJM’s trade wing Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labour Union (DTDPLU) and some bodies from the Dooars region have left the onus on the state government to fix the minimum wage for garden workers.

A crucial meeting of the UTWF was held today in Siliguri to finalise issues that are to be discussed during the upcoming meeting at Uttarkanya. Talwar, DTDPLU legal advisor Tilak Chandra Roka, DTDPLU general secretary Suraj Subba, Terai-Dooars in-charge and central committee member Harihar Acharya, including Baidhnath Baraik and Kiran Kalandi from the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) were present at the occasion.

There are more than 3 lakh workers in the tea gardens of the Dooars-Terai who get paid just Rs67 a day. In the gardens of Darjeeling, the daily wage was increased to Rs90 from April 1 after the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-backed Darjeeling Terai-Dooars Plantation Labour Union and the garden managements agreed on the amount.

The CPM-affiliated Darjeeling District Chiya Kaman Majdoor Union DDCKMU had earlier adopted a resolution to demand a rise in workers’ wages. CPM leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Saman Pathak said, "We have decided to pressurise the state government to increase the wages of tea garden workers. Garden workers at present receive Rs90 as daily wages, down from the actual rate fixed at Rs197.”

The CPM leader alleged the management is siphoning away what rightfully belongs to the workers by paying them a paltry Rs90 and the rest in the form of fringe benefits such as firewood and gratuity.

“We now want the management to fix workers’ daily wage at Rs 280 excluding all fringe benefits," added Pathak.