Trade unions of Darjeeling tea industry decided to suspend protest for bonus until November

 Unions have been agitating since September first week for a 20 per cent bonus, however, with management refusing anything more than 13 per cent, state government recently issued an advisory to management to distribute bonus at rate of 16 per cent

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, 07.10.24 : Trade unions of Darjeeling tea industry have decided to suspend their month-long agitation for a 20 per cent bonus until November 6.

The unions have been agitating since September first week for a 20 per cent bonus. However, with the management refusing anything more than 13 per cent, the state government recently issued an advisory to the management to distribute bonus at the rate of 16 per cent.

A section of the workers, however, continued the agitation even after the management had credited 16 per cent bonus online. The bonus is calculated on the tea workers' annual earnings.

On Saturday, the state labour department informed the unions that another round of talks would be held at Calcutta on November 6.

“Eight unions from Darjeeling sat for talks on Sunday. We have decided to attend the November 6 talks. We have also decided to suspend our agitation for the moment,” said Saman Pathak, former Rajya Sabha MP and Citu leader.

The agitation involved stopping the dispatch of made tea from garden factories and workers’ demonstrations at tea gardens.

A tea garden from Darjeeling had said it was unable to sell tea worth around ₹35 lakh stored in the garden.

There are 87 tea gardens in the Darjeeling tea industry.

Pathak said that the unions were behind the workers in the 20 per cent demand. “The state government might be trying to dilly-dally hoping that the issue will fizzle out but we will not let it happen,” said Pathak.

The unions have decided to collect “more than 50,000 signatures of workers” and take it to the Calcutta meeting.

Courtesy & source- The Telegraph