Home ›› 13 Aug 2022 ›› Front
The Bangladesh Tea Workers Union has announced that they have decided to abstain from work for an indefinite period in all tea gardens in the country from today.
The workers were going on a daily two-hour work break to demand increased wages since Tuesday. Since the demands were not met, the union decided on Thursday to go on an indefinite strike.
Meanwhile, the workers and leaders have been instructed by the union to continue their movement in the cities and markets of their respective areas.
On Friday morning tea workers held a protest march and rally, blocking roads in 23 tea gardens of Moulvibazar’s Kamolganj upazila. The workers demanded an increase in wages in line with commodity prices during the protest.
The tea garden owners’ association – Bangladesh Tea Board (BTA) – and the workers’ association – Bangladesh Tea Workers Union – signed a preliminary Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to increase the daily wages of the workers from Tk 102 to Tk 120 in October, 2020.
The new wages came into effect on January 1, 2019, but the contract has expired. The workers union and BTA have not reached an agreement on the wages of the workers during this period.
Recently BTA proposed to increase the wages by Tk 14 which was rejected by the workers union. The union then made a formal proposal to increase the wages to Tk 300 per day. The workers’ union gave BTA an ultimatum of 7 days to accept the demand, and decided to go on strike as the demand was not met within this period.
