Tea bitter for TMC - Left, Cong attack govt on lack of minimum wage

TT, Siliguri, March 29: The delay by the state government in fixing minimum wage for over three lakh tea workers in Bengal has posed a challenge for Trinamul in the elections.

The Left Front, Congress and even the BJP have seized on the issue and are attacking the ruling party.

Tea garden dwellers are a deciding factor in 13 Assembly constituencies in north Bengal.

The Joint Forum, a conglomeration of 24 trade unions of tea plantation labourers, said although the government had formed a board to recommend the minimum wage, there had not been much progress.

"After the board was formed in February last year, it met once. This shows that the state government is dilly-dallying on the issues. We are highlighting it in the election campaigns of Left Front and Congress candidates in the tea belt," said Ziaur Alam, the convener of the forum, whose constituents include the trade unions of the Left parties and the Congress.

Trinamul has four unions representing the tea estate workforce and none of them is part of the forum. Although the Trinamul unions also support the fixing of minimum wage, the issue has always been pursued consistently by the forum.

Alam, who is also the Jalpaiguri district secretary of the Citu, said Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam had fixed minimum pay for the tea industry.

He said Rs 250 should be the daily minimum wage in the tea industry in Bengal.

On February 20, 2015, state labour minister Malay Ghatak had announced the formation of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board that comprises 27 members, including trade union leaders, representatives of tea planters and government officials. The minister had said the board would advise the state on fixing minimum pay for tea garden workers.

The term of the board is two years.

Joseph Munda, the Congress candidate of Nagrakata Assembly seat in Jalpaiguri district, said: "Whenever I go to tea gardens during the campaign, I tell the residents that the Centre and the state government might be extending some relief to them, but they are silent on the minimum wage. The minimum pay can bring to an end many problems faced by the garden dwellers."

Trinamul trade union leaders refused comment on the issue. However, a trade union leader of Trinamul admitted off the record that the party was facing questions from workers.

"It is true that the minimum wage has not been fixed, unlike other tea producing states. We are facing questions on the matter from labourers during the campaign," he said.

Trinamul doesn't have a strong base in the tea belt of the Dooars, Terai and the Darjeeling hills. The Left Front and the Congress mainly wield influence in tea gardens.

Apart from the minimum wage, trade unions are targeting the Trinamul government on food subsidy and closure of tea estates in the course of the election campaign.

"Tea planters used to distribute food grains at 45 paisa per kg to workers. The planters would purchase the food grains at Rs 8-10 per kg and then supply the same to the workers at the subsidised rate. However, after the state introduced the National Food Security Act in tea gardens this year, the planters are able to buy the food grains at Rs 2 per kilo from the government and distribute the same among workers at 45 paisa per kilo. Here, the garden owners are saving money which they used to spend earlier on the food grains," said Mani Kumar Darnal, the joint general secretary of Intuc-affiliated National Union of Plantation Workers.

"We should be paid the amount the planters save in that way. The state is silent on the entire issue and has not asked the planters to pay the money to the workers," he said.

Darnal said workers of four closed tea estates - Bandapani, Dharanipur, Redbank and Surendranagar - were also disgruntled with the government.

"The land leases of the four estates was cancelled by the state in 2014. But the state didn't put pressure on the Centre to find new owners for the four estates. The state has no power to acquire tea estates. Under the Tea Act, only the Centre can do it, as it has done in the case of Duncans' gardens. The workers are subsisting on the meagre monthly assistance of Rs 1,500 paid by the state. Many of them have moved to other places. It is unlikely that those who are languishing in poverty would vote Trinamul," he said.

Alok Chakraborty, the working president of Trinamul Tea Plantation Workers' Union, said the state had been providing relief and medical care to workers and their families of all sick and closed gardens.

"Unlike during the Left Front rule, there were no starvation deaths in tea gardens in the past five years when Trinamul was in power. Besides, tea estates are brought under the purview of several social security schemes. There are political parties and trade unions whose intention is always to malign the government and our party" he said.