Bengal labour department holds virtual meeting on tea garden staff pay revision

 

While the daily wage was raised to Rs 202 from Rs 176, the staff and the sub-staff got a hike of 15 per cent in their salaries

“Our salaries have not been revised since 2015. As the state government has not yet fixed the minimum wage of workers and our salaries, an agreement should be inked for revision,” said a representative of the West Bengal Tea Garden Employees’ Association.: File picture

TT   |   Siliguri   |  25.08.21 : The state labour department on Tuesday held a virtual meeting of tea garden owners and trade union leaders to discuss the salaries of the staff and sub-staff, about 10,000 of whom work in the brew belt of north Bengal.

“Our salaries have not been revised since 2015. As the state government has not yet fixed the minimum wage of workers and our salaries, an agreement should be inked for revision,” said a representative of the West Bengal Tea Garden Employees’ Association.

In January this year, the state government had announced an interim hike in wages and the salaries of workers, staff and the sub-staff.

While the daily wage was raised to Rs 202 from Rs 176, the staff and the sub-staff got a hike of 15 per cent in their salaries.

“It is true that there had been an interim salary hike. But if we consider the rate at which our salaries were revised till 2015, what we earn today is much lower,” said a clerk serving in a tea garden in the Terai.

The state government, sources said, wants stakeholders of the tea industry to reach on a consensus and fix the minimum wage of workers and salaries of the staff and sub-staff soon.

“On August 31, the labour department will hold a meeting of the minimum wage advisory committee in Calcutta. It would be the 15th meeting of the committee. We hope some decisions would be made there as five years have passed since the committee was formed and till now, the minimum wage has not been fixed,” said Alok Chakraborty, a senior trade union leader and the Trinamul Congress’s Darjeeling (plains) district chairman.

Frequent meetings convened by the state labour department to discuss the wages and the salaries of tea estate workers and employees indicate that Trinamul has recast its focus on the north Bengal tea belt, a region from where the party has failed to draw support in back-to-back elections.