6th tripartite meeting at Uttarkanya on TG wage hike fails

PRASHANT ACHARYA, EOI, Siliguri, 8 Aug 2014: The sixth tripartite meeting to finalise the wage increment and other benefits of the tea garden workers of Darjeeling, Terai and Dooars ended undecided at Uttarkanya today.

After a long decision the association of the tea garden owners have sought some more time to think over the proposal given by the state government to hike the wage up to Rs 140/-. But the Trade union leaders are not ready to accept the proposal given the government asking the owners to fix the minimum labour wage as per Labour Act i.e RS 285/-.

Today’s meeting was attended by the state labour minister Moloy Ghatak, North Bengal Development minister Gautam Deb, State Labour Commissioner Javed Akhtar , Joint Labour Commissioner Mohhamad Rizwan from the government side and leaders from Tea Association of India (TAI), CCPA along with trade union leaders from various political parties.

After the meeting minister Ghatak told media the owners have asked some more time to think about the government’s proposal and the government hopes the next meeting scheduled at Kolkata within a week will finalise everything.

Prabir Bhattacharya secretary general of TAI said, “The government has given the proposal to fix the wage to Rs 135/- and we have asked for some more time to discuss among our members.” He also said that it will be quite difficult for the owners to provide such bigger hike, as the cost of production is extremely high, while the price rise is another factor.

S Chattopadhya a veteran leader from Kolkata of Trinamool Congress after the meeting said in 2011 the wage was incremented to 40% and now demand has been placed to the owners to increment 40% of the present wage i.e Rs 95/- . He was hopeful that the meeting at Kolkata will be the last meeting and owners will agree with the proposal.