Home ›› 04 Oct 2022 ›› Front
Tea garden owners are denying paying the arrears to the workers by delaying the agreement signing over their wages and allowances, the leaders of the Bangladesh Cha Sramik Union (BCSU) have alleged.
According to the lone tea workers union, every permanent worker is supposed to get more than Tk 30,000 in arrears for the last 20 months. Around 1.03 lakh permanent workers work in 167 tea estates and tea gardens across Bangladesh.
On August 28, following protests, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fixed Tk 170 as the daily wage of the workers. It was Tk 120 earlier.
The delay by the Bangladesh Tea Association (BTA), the representative body of tea estate and garden owners, in paying the dues can anger the labourers and take their movement further, the labour leaders warned.
“The agreement has not been signed yet. We met with the owners three times in September. Every time, they repeatedly refused to pay the arrears. This is an unreasonable move,” BCSU Treasurer Poresh Kalindi told The Business Post on Monday.
“It’s not clear when the agreement will be signed. Workers will not wait indefinitely for the arrears. They are losing patience and we are failing to keep them calm as time passes,” he added.
Poresh said, “We do not want to go on strike again and stop working. But the situation will be hard to control after Durga Puja.”
Traditionally, BTA makes a two-year agreement with BCSU and set the workers’ wages. When owners sign it after the last one expires, workers usually get the arrears in three instalments.
The previous agreement lasted from January 2019 to December 2020. In line with that, workers are now entitled to a daily wage of Tk 170 starting from January 1, 2021, which means they will get arrears for the last 20 months as they are getting the new wage from September 1.
“According to the owners, the total figure would be Tk 364 crore. We urged them to pay the arrears in six instalments instead of two or three. But they are refusing,” Poresh said.
Consequences of the delay
The prime minister sat with the tea garden owners on August 28, when workers were demonstrating for a daily wage hike to Tk 300 from Tk 120. After she fixed the new wage, workers called off the strike and resumed working after nearly three weeks.
“Workers have been getting arrears in instalments over the last 50 years. But the owners’ refusal to pay it this time is unprecedented. We have sent letters to the district’s deputy commissioner and the Labour Department describing the issue because we want a peaceful solution,” said BCSU General Secretary Nripen Paul.
However, talking to The Business Post on Monday, BTA Secretary and spokesperson Kazi Muzafar Ahammed said, “I am yet to receive any directive from the BTA management over the workers’ arrears.”
He said they implemented the increased wages and other allowances following the prime minister’s decision. “Labourers who work on a daily and monthly basis are getting the increased wages from August 28 and September 1, respectively.”
After the meeting with the prime minister on August 28, Muzafar told The Business Post that the permanent workers will get arrears. “And we will fix the number of instalments at a meeting with BCSU.”
On Monday, Nripen said, “The delay in paying arrears is benefitting the owners in many ways. Chief among them is that now they won’t have to pay the dues to around 50,000 casual workers.
“As a result, these labourers, who work in the gardens only four months a year, will not get any money in back pay due to their status as casual workers.”
These workers would have gotten Tk 50 crore in total if the wage and allowance agreement was signed on January 1, 2021 — the first day of the new tenure.
Weighing in on the issue, Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD) Director Philip Gain told The Business Post, “It looks like the owners are trying to pay less by making it seem they do not want to pay the arrears at all.
“But there is no scope to use any tactics to do either because the workers rightfully deserve this money.”
SEHD is a non-governmental organization that has intensively been working on tea gardens and workers and the marginal communities of the country for years.
There are 167 tea estates and gardens covering 279,506.88 acres of land around the country. Of them, 129 are tea estates and 38 are recognised as tea gardens.
Of the estates, there are 76 in Moulvibazar, 22 in Habiganj, 18 in Chattogram, 12 in Sylhet and one in Rangamati.
On the other hand, there are 15 gardens in Moulvibazar, seven in Sylhet, eight in Panchagarh, three each in Chattogram and Habiganj, and one each in Rangamati and Thakurgaon.
