Three Lakh Tea Plantation Workers

Strike Work In Bengal

THREE lakh tea garden workers in 350 tea plantations in north Bengal struck work on August 5 based on long standing demands. The five main demands are:

• The cancellation of leasehold on fallow land within the plantations

• The early opening of closed tea gardens

• The framing and implementation of a national policy for tea garden workers

• The running of tea plantations by workers’ cooperatives

• The immediate implementation of the Plantation Labour Act

The day saw big processions in the tea gardens. There were also a plethora of gate meetings. The strike was held under the aegis of the United Forum of the Tea Workers, the Coordination Committee. The GNLF that sought to break the workers’ unity proved a miserable failure in all its attempts to do so.

The agitation held by the tea plantation workers throughout the day was total in the hills, the terai, and the dooars. Even in the closed Red Bank tea garden, a big assembly of workers became strident for the implementation of their demands. The success of the strike is largely due to the vociferous and wide ranging campaign that had preceded it. 

The speakers at the meetings stated clearly that the tea plantation owners had started to mount attacks on the workers even as a crisis had struck the tea gardens. The management themselves are certainly to be blamed in large measure for this crisis, they noted. The dues of the workers have been severely curtailed; the hard-earned rights of the workers have been severely tampered with. After locking out the tea plantations, the owners would simply run away, letting the workers face a grim future.

The management has not deposited the provident fund of the workers and their insurance dues. The owners were also proving quite unwilling to abide by the terms set at the 1999 tripartite agreement. The workers are forced to accept lower wage in the time of crisis affecting the tea industry as a whole. Many tea gardens chose not to offer rationing and medical benefits to the workers.

Unwilling to implement the Plantation Labour Act, the management would not invest in the plantations despite earning a considerable amount of net profit from the gardens.  There has been little in the way of improvement of the bagichas, to speak of. The tea garden workers fervently appealed to the state government to immediately take over the sick and closed tea gardens.

The tea plantation workers were full of praise for the work done by the state government for their welfare. The workers of the closed tea gardens have been brought under Provident Fund. They are in receipt of Rs 500 per month as relief. The cess on tea has been removed. It is recalled that as per the request of the Coordination Committee, the state Left Front government would enter into discussion with the union government on the issues affecting the tea plantations of Bengal. The Coordination Committee declared that strike for a day was but a symbolic one. If the management did not bother to heed the demands of the long-suffering workers, there would be much wider movement set afoot in the hills, terai, and dooars of north Bengal.

(BP)