Protests for minimum tea pay

AVIJIT SINHA, TT, 02 Aug 2019, Siliguri: Tea workers hit the streets on Thursday under the banner of Joint Forum -- the apex body of tea unions in north Bengal -- to demand fixation of minimum wage and revision of salaries for staff and sub-staff in estates.

Both in the hills and plains, the protesters walked up to their nearest state government establishment, ranging from police stations to BDO offices, and submitted memorandums while reiterating the demands.

"Back in 2015, the state has formed the advisory committee for recommendation of minimum wage rate for the tea workers. Four years have passed but nothing has been done so far. Also, the wages and salaries of the staff and substaff need to be revised. We have time and again tried to draw the attention of the state government but there has been no development. That is why we have come out in the streets and in due course, will intensify our movement," said Alok Chakraborty, the Darjeeling district president of Intuc.

While tea workers took rallies in different areas of Terai and Dooars, a similar scene was also witnessed in Darjeeling hills.

In north Bengal, there are around 300 tea estates, which employ over three lakh tea workers and around 20,000 staff and sub-staff.

The Joint Forum that had lined up a series of agitation had started their movement from July 29 when workers' meetings were held in each tea estate.

"We will wait till the middle of August. If there is no response from the state's side, we will go for further movement," said Mani Kumar Darnal, a leader of the forum.

He also mentioned that the state needs to resolve a number of other issues related to the tea population of the state. Among these include conferment of land rights to tea workers and their families and improvement of infrastructure like roads and drinking water facility in tea gardens.

During the agitation, the trade union leaders also asserted that the tea companies will have to continue paying the wages and bonus in cash to the workers.

"The Centre has recently introduced a TDS (at the rate of two per cent) on withdrawal of cash above one crore rupees in a year. But till date, there is no banking infrastructure in most of the gardens and it would be inconvenient for workers if the companies start transferring their wages to banks. There are gardens from where workers will have to travel over 40km to reach a bank or an ATM," said Chakraborty.

The planters were worried. "The industry has already suffered huge losses due to the recent rainfall and floods. Now, if the workers start getting into back to back agitations, it would be fresh poser for the industry," said S Guha Thakurta, secretary, Dooars Branch of Indian Tea Association.