Darjeeling Tea garden workers plan strike

VIVEK CHHETRI, TT, 25 October 2019,  Darjeeling: Workers of the Singtom tea garden near Darjeeling town have decided not to attend work from Thursday to protest against the management's decision to disburse wages in proportion to the work done.

A Darjeeling Tea planter said such a ceasework by workers in the hills was unprecedented in recent memory. In almost all cases it is the management that either declares suspension of work or a lockout.

Anuk Tamang, the president of the trade union affiliated to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (Binay Tamang camp), said the workers had "on their own" decided to undertake the indefinite agitation.

"During the recent bonus agitation, our workers held gate meetings and adopted a go-slow tactic for two hours on four consecutive days," said Anuk Tamang. "Now the management has told us that this amounts to eight hours of no work and translates to a day's wage, which they want to deduct"If they don't want to pay why should we attend work?" asked Anuk Tamang.

Mohan Chirimar, the proprietor of the garden that is located 6km from Darjeeling, told The Telegraph over phone from Calcutta that the pro-rata practice was nothing new and was being implemented not just in the Darjeeling Tea industry but across all industries in India.

"This is nothing new. We are following the existing rule. This is not the first time that it is being done; many gardens have done this for many years," said Chirimar.

Highlighting the woes of the industry, Chirimar said this year's bonus settlement of 20 per cent was prima facie wrong. "This is now the only industry in the world that pays 20 per cent bonus even in a year they are making losses," the garden owner said.

The industry had refused to pay more than 15 per cent bonus this year. However, following a tripartite meeting between the state, management and the unions, an agreement that bonus would be paid at the rate of 20 per cent, but in two instalments of 12 and 8 per cent, was signed.

While the 12 per cent bonus was to be paid before Diwali, the date for disbursement of the remaining portion is to be decided during a tripartite meeting in November.

"We paid the 12 per cent bonus on October 19 and 800odd people came to collect the amount. Now only 560 are coming for work," Chirimar alleged.

The trade union leader, Anuk Tamang, said there were other issues too.

"For example, the management was talking about deducting 2 per cent from the workers for the tax they have to pay (TDS for the withdrawal of more than Rs 1 crore in a year). The management is also talking about not employing the workers who have not been regular for a period of three months from December," said Anuk Tamang..