Tea strike keeps north shuttered - Ruckus in Assembly after Left MLAs get news of Asok and Jibesh arrests

Asok Bhattacharya with other Left leaders and workers in Siliguri during the tea
protest.
Picture by Kundan Yolmo

TT, Nov. 12: A 12-hour general strike called by the Left Front in the Dooars tea-producing districts in north Bengal was near total today.

Government offices stayed open and a few state buses ran. In Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar towns almost everything from education institutions to shops stayed shut.

Unions backed by all other political parties and formations, except Trinamul, supported the strike.

In the hills, the strike was observed in tea gardens. The Morcha union in the hills had said earlier that they would not go for a general strike, but an industry-centred protest.

The tea garden workers have been demanding revision of wages that is due since April.

Every three years, tea unions, the state government and planters sit for talks to decide the wage raise for the next three years.

Six rounds of talks have happened but the new wage increment could not be finalised as the garden unions are unhappy with the staggered hike of Rs 30 being offered by the planters, which would mean a wage raise of Rs 10 per year for three years.

Trinamul, which has unions in 220 of the around 290 gardens in the hills and the plains though not enough ground support to sway the opinion of workers, favours more talks.

The 23 trade unions, among them those of the Left, the Congress and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, want immediate revision of wages and the fixing of a minimum wage for the tea industry.

In Siliguri, Left leaders out to block roads were arrested in the morning but released in the afternoon.

The Left Front supporters took out a rally around 9.30am, which the police stopped near the Siliguri district hospital.

An altercation ensued and senior CPM leaders Asok Bhattacharya, Jibesh Sarkar and others squatted on the road, demanding that they be allowed to proceed to the subdivisional officer's office. More policemen were called. Around 40 leaders and supporters were then taken away to Siliguri police station in police vehicles.

When the news of the arrest reached the Assembly in Calcutta, CPM leaders such as Surjya Kanta Mishra raised a ruckus in the House.

The Left MLAs occupied the well of the House for about 25 minutes, demanding a statement from the government on the situation in the north Bengal tea gardens.

They alleged that the arrest of the CPM leaders in Siliguri was a move by the government to stifle "legitimate protests" over the plight of tea garden workers in north Bengal.

Yesterday, the unions had called an industry-wide daylong strike, to which the response was almost total in the gardens.

When proceedings began in the House this morning, news came in of the arrest of Siliguri of CPM leaders Asok Bhattacharya and Jibesh Sarkar. The members first demanded an immediate discussion. When Speaker Biman Banerjee said it was not possible at the moment, the Left members demanded a statement from the government.

The commotion continued for 25 minutes into Question Hour till the Speaker assured the members that an official statement would be made.

Later, Trinamul chief whip Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said several bipartite and tripartite meetings had been held in Siliguri and Calcutta over tea workers' wages. "They are continuing," he told the House.

He pointed out that during the last three years of Left rule, wages had been revised by only Rs 4.50 per day. But former Trinamul labour minister Purnendu Bose had raised the wages by 42 per cent (Rs 27) and another hike of around 42 per cent was being considered by present labour minister Malay Ghatak.

"However, their efforts are being thwarted by such protests by Surjyababu and his Left colleagues in north Bengal. All this is being done to gain political mileage, which is affecting the implementation of appropriate wages," he said.

Tea garden workers in the Dooars and Terai get Rs 95 as daily wage, while in the hills tea hands get Rs 90.

In Jalpaiguri, Chitta Dey, the convener of the Coordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers, which is a conglomeration of 18 garden unions, said: "There was an overwhelming response of residents who stood by the demands of tea workers. We will not accept the abysmal rise in tea wages as proposed by tea planters and the state."

"We have been informed by state labour officials that they will hold a bipartite meeting with all tea trade unions at Uttarkanya on November 17. We will participate in the talks and plan our next course of action after that," Dey said.

"Tea planters are proposing a hike of Rs 30, while the state has proposed a hike of Rs 40 for the next three years. But this is unacceptable as the minimum wage in our state is Rs 206, that too, for unskilled agricultural workers," Dey added.