Tea wage elusive

TT, Aug. 9: The second meeting of the minimum wage advisory board formed by the state government on February 17 last year was inconclusive today as trade union leaders turned down a proposal mooted by the state.

"In today's meeting, we got a proposal from the state government that the minimum daily wage for tea workers should be Rs 159. We have opposed it as it is close to the present wage rate (Rs 132.50) and does not cover several expenses which workers incur for their families," Mani Kumar Darnal, the joint general secretary of the Intuc-affiliated National Union of Plantation Workers, said.

The meeting was held at the state labour department in the new secretariat building in Calcutta today.

"During the meeting, which continued for around one-and-a-half hours, we elaborated on certain issues pertaining to workers' expenditure and tried to drive home the point that if the minimum wage is fixed at such a low rate, tea workers would find it tough to run their homes. We believe another meeting would be called soon," Ziaur Alam, the convener of Joint Forum, said.

Senior officials of the state labour department and representatives of tea planters' associations who are members of the advisory board, were present at the meeting.

"At the meeting, the trade unions have been asked to submit a comprehensive paper, mentioning their points in detail," a senior representative of one of the planters' organisations, said.

The union leaders, sources said, also met state labour minister Malay Ghatak today.

"We clarified to him that as the entire tea population is covered under the National Food Security Act now, the money that tea planters used to spend to provide subsidised ration to workers and their families, should be handed over in cash, along with the wages, to them," Darnal said. Prabir Bhattacharjee, the secretary general of the Tea Association of India who is a member of the advisory board but could not make it to today's meeting, said: "The planters' fraternity has reiterated that it has no problem with fixing of a minimum wage but the rate should be finalised after taking into cognisance an array of issues like the expenditure we bear to provide additional facilities to the workforce."