Tea union demands proper wages in small gardens

Tea workers agitate for ‘equal pay for equal work’ norms

SNS, SILIGURI, 13 FEBRUARY 2023: North Bengal Tea Plantation Employees Union (NBTPEU) has raised the issue of "discrimination in wages" for tea workers associated with small tea gardens in the north Bengal region. 

In Siliguri today, several workers under the banner of NBTPEU today staged a demonstration and served a memorandum to the Additional Labour Commissioner on the issue. 

In a written note, one senior leader of NBTPEU, Md Nasiruddin, has pointed out that tea workers associated with a small garden, which is less than 25 acres of tea land, in Jalpaiguri get Rs 187 a day, but that workers associated with a small garden, which has above 25 acres of land, get Rs 193 a day in Jalpaiguri district. 

Significantly, tea workers associated with small gardens in the Siliguri sub-division get only Rs 177 a day. Very interestingly, small tea garden workers in North Dinajpur area get only Rs 173.50 a day. Md Nasiruddin also claimed that when small tea growers of both Siliguri subdivision and Islampur subdivision in North Dinajpur belong to the North Bengal Small Tea Planters' Association (NBSTPA), there is "discrimination in wages" among the workers in the two areas. 

The wage agreement with NBSTPA wilI expire in March 2023. NBTPEIJ leaders also claimed that three rounds of bipartite talks with the Small & New Garden Forum, associated with the Indian Tea Planters Association (ITPA) were inconclusive and that discrimination in tea workers' wages has not yet been settled in the Dooars and the Coochbehar area. On the other hand, according to NBTPEU leaders, the Terai Indian Planters Association (TIPA) has asked its members, who are treated as Small Tea Growers (STG), to pay the same rate as in Registered Tea Gardens (RTC) that is Rs 232 a day, but it has not yet been implemented properly in the Terai region, comprising Siliguri and Islampur sub-division. 

"Absence of statutory Minimum Wages the tea industry has resulted in gross mandatory norms of equal pay for equal work," the General Secretary oft he NBTPEU, Abhijit Roy said in the memo submitted to the Additional Labour Commissioner (ALC) Kallol Banerjee. 

"We have urged the ALC to immediately intervene in the matter in order to put an end to the discrimination, discrepancy and disparity and ensure a uniform wage structure in the tea industry through a tripartite settlement," Mr Roy added. Sources said Mr Banerjee has assured them that he would do the needful in that regard.