Kilkott estate office locked

TT, Jalpaiguri, March 15: The office of Kilkott Tea Estate owned by the Duncans Goenka Group was locked up by workers supporting the Trinamul Tea Plantation Workers' Union and the Progressive Tea Workers' Union today alleging non-payment of dues.

The unions have said they will run the garden on their own by selling tealeaves.

It is the first time that workers of a Trinamul-backed tea trade union have locked up an office in a Duncans garden.

"An agreement was signed on January 22 and the management had promised to clear our dues in four installments. They paid one installment last month and another on March 1. They were supposed to pay another installment on March 10 but did not. We locked up the garden office today in protest and we have decided that from now, we will run the garden by selling tealeaves," Ratan Porja, the unit secretary of the Trinamul Tea Plantation Workers' Union, said.

"The management has failed to comply with the agreement and did not pay us even today - even five days after the stipulated date. We demonstrated, went to the garden office and asked the staff to vacate it. We then locked the office," Ramchandra Porja, a local PTWU leader, said. "The new tea season has started and we have decided to run the garden by selling tealeaves."

The move by the Trinamul-backed union a day before Mamata Banerjee's visit to the Dooars has left the district leaders in awkward position.

"If the company does not pay the dues on time, it is natural that there would be dissent," Sourav Chakraborty, the Jalpaiguri district Trinamul president, said. ".... we would simultaneously say that locking a garden office is not something which we endorse."

Representatives of the Duncans Group said they would speak to the agitated workers and try to clear their dues at the earliest.

"We have information that some workers have locked the garden office and claimed that they will run the garden from now. We will speak to them and clarify that the company is sincere in regularising activities in the garden," C.P. Kapoor, the superintending manager of Kilkott, said. "We are trying our best to clear the dues at the earliest."