State announces interim hike in wages & salary for tea garden workers

Darjeeling: On the heels of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's announcement from Alipurduar on June 8, a notification was issued by the Labour Commissioner, Government of West Bengal declaring the interim wage hike for tea garden workers from Rs. 202 to Rs. 232 and a monthly increase of salary by 15 per cent with effect from 01/01/22. The arrears will have to be paid in two installments by July 2022.

Attending a tribal mass wedding in the Alipurduar district on June 8, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that tea garden workers will be getting an interim wage hike of 15%.

A Memorandum issued by Amarnath Mallick, Labour Commissioner, West Bengal (Memo No. : 48/06/Co-ord/LC) dated 14/06/2022 stated that a meeting was held on 02/02/2022 at the Shramik Bhawan in Siliguri between tea trade unions representing the workers and tea garden owners' associations to discuss enhancement of wages/salary of the organized tea garden workers.

"After careful consideration on the matter, the Labour department, West Bengal hereby notifies that the owners of the tea gardens will raise the wages of the daily rated workers to Rs. 232 per day from Rs. 202 per day, thereby enhancing and amount of Rs. 30 per day as an interim measure with effect from 01/01/2022, pending finalization of the Charter of Demands including finalization of the revision of Minimum Wages in the employment of plantations of West Bengal. Similarly, the salary of monthly rated tea garden employees will also be raised to 15 per cent of their existing gross salary w.e.f. 01/01/2022 as an interim measure. The tea garden owners are requested to pay the arrear of wages/salary payable to the daily rated workers as well as monthly rated employees, by virtue of this increase, within July 2022, in two installments," stated the memorandum.

The tea industry of West Bengal engages 4.5 lakh employees, Around 12 lakh people are directly or indirectly dependent on this tea industry.

Incidentally, the trade unions have been demanding the implementation of minimum wages in the tea gardens. A minimum wage advisory committee was constituted by the West Bengal Government in 2015 to look into the issue.

The last meeting of the committee had been held on June 2nd but had ended in a stalemate. While the trade union representatives had demanded Rs. 248, the Management was not willing to go up above Rs. 220.