Tea workers continue strike demanding wage hike

Nearly 150,000 workers at more than 200 Bangladeshi tea plantations went on an indefinite strike from Saturday to demand a 150 per cent rise in their Tk 120 daily wages, which researchers say are among the lowest in the world.

At 12 noon on Saturday, tea workers blocked roads for 30 minutes in Srimangal upazila with a protest march using slogans such as “Tea workers, unite, fight”, and “Tk 300 wages, must be paid”.

Most tea workers in the overwhelmingly Muslim country are low-caste Hindus, the descendants of labourers brought to the plantations by colonial-era British planters.

The minimum wage for a tea plantation worker in the country is 120 taka a day which according to the workers, is barely enough to buy food, let alone other necessities.

“Nowadays we can’t even afford coarse rice for our family with this amount,” said Anjana Bhuyian, 50.

“A wage of one day can’t buy a litre of edible oil. How can we then even think about our nutrition, medication, or children’s education?” she said.

Unions are demanding an increase to Tk 300 a day, with inflation rising and the currency depreciating and said that workers in the country’s 232 tea gardens began a full-scale strike on Saturday, after four days of two-hour stoppages.

“Nearly 150,000 tea workers have joined the strike today,” said Sitaram Bin, a committee member of the Bangladesh Tea Workers’ Union.

“No tea worker will pluck tea leaves or work in the leaf processing plants as long as the authority doesn’t pay heed to our demands,” he said.

Plantation owners have offered an increase of Tk 14 a day, after a Tk 18 rise last year and M Shah Alam, chairman of the Bangladesh Tea Association, said operators were “going through difficult times with profit declining in recent times”.

“The cost of production is increasing. Our expenses have increased as the price of gas, fertiliser and diesel have gone up,” he added.

Bijoy Hazra, organising secretary of the Bangladesh Tea Workers Union, said the tea workers will observe a work break for an indefinite period from Saturday until their wages demands are met.

“We have suspended meetings, gatherings, and demonstrations for Sunday and Monday on the occasion of National Mourning Day. The strike will resume from Tuesday,” Pankaj Kand, vice president of Bangladesh Tea Workers Union told this correspondent.

Golam Mohammad Shibli, chairman of the Sylhet division of the Bangladeshi Tea plantation owners Association, said it is illegal to stop work during the negotiations between the owners and the workers.

“We hope the workers will come back to work soon. Work strikes during this season will lead to huge losses for both parties,” he said.

Researchers claim that for many years, the tea business industry has taken advantage of labourers who reside in some of the most remote regions of the nation.