Tea garden strike today

TT, Oct. 12: Tea gardens in the plains and the hills have called a day-long strike on October 13 to protest the uncertainty over wage revision.

All tea trade unions, except Trinamul’s, have supported the daylong stop-work call. Over 3 lakh garden hands will stay off work in around 350 plantations spanning the Darjeeling hills, the Dooars and Terai.

Tea garden wages were due for revision on April 1. Since then, several rounds of meetings have happened but the garden owners and trade unions have been unable to reach a settlement. Trinamul supports the wage revision demand but has refused to participate in the strike, saying it favours talks, not steps like halt in production.

The 23 supporting unions, which include those backed by the Left, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the Congress, have said they will walk up to their nearest police station, BDO’s office or state labour department’s office and submit memorandums addressed to the Prime Minister and the chief minister, seeking intervention to revise the wages.

“Six rounds of tripartite talks have been held since February, and yet no decision has been reached on the new wages. The last wage agreement lapsed on March 31 but workers in plains and hills receive Rs 95 and Rs 90, respectively, as daily wages,” said Chitta Dey, the convener of the Coordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers, which is a conglomeration of 18 of the 23 unions. “The owners have proposed an annual hike of Rs 7 each year for three years, which is unacceptable.”

The unions also want the Centre and the state to announce a minimum wage for the tea industry, which in one leap would more than double the wages. But neither government has committed anything on that. The wages are now fixed through tripartite negotiations every three years.

“The minimum wages for unskilled workers in the state is around Rs 206 in the agricultural sector. But those working in tea industry are skilled hands,” a trade union leader said, implying that tea workers deserve more than Rs 206.

Tea planters are not ready to accept the minimum wage demand.

“The tea industry is governed by the Plantation Labour Act under which we provide several benefits to workers, unlike other industries. Among these are health care, accommodation, transportation for school children, firewood and subsidised rations. The money spent for workers for these benefits should be added to the existing wage to find out the real wage that tea workers receive,” a planter said.

“The Centre and state should see to it that the act is amended or help us with social schemes so that our social responsibilities can be shared,” the planter said.

Amitangshu Chakraborty, the convener of the Bengal branch of Consultative Committee of Plantation Associations, said: “Decisions can always be taken across the table and any demonstration or plan to abstain from work would only hit the industry hard.”

Ziaur Alam, the Jalpaiguri district Citu secretary, said: “A delegation of our joint forum will meet Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union minister of state for commerce, in Guwahati and submit a memorandum to her tomorrow. We would request her to look into the issue as no fresh initiative has been noticed from the state’s side to resolve the problem.”