New Age | Wage of Tk 500 a day for tea workers demanded

The Conscious Students and Youth of the Tea Gardens, a platform for tea workers’ rights, on Friday staged a human chain, demanding the cancellation of the current ‘unjustified’ wage gazette and setting of a minimum wage of Tk 500 a day.

They also demanded the immediate cancellation of the recently issued gazette increasing the wage for permanent tea workers by 5 per cent or Tk 8.5, bringing the total wage to Tk 178.5 a day.

Mentioning this wage is degrading and insufficient to sustain for living in the current market situation, Mohan Rabidas, a coordinator of the platform, said, ‘We request the immediate cancellation of this gazette. We also demand the minimum wage be increased to at least Tk 500 a day.’

Around 15 lakh tea workers work in 241 tea gardens in the country, and even though they have been living in the gardens for around 180 years, they do not have any right to land, they pointed out.

They also stated that although the responsibility of the garden owners was to ensure education, healthcare, housing, and sanitation for the tea workers, no one cared about these issues.’

Their other demands included ensuring land rights; establishing educational institutions and child care centers in every tea garden; creating a commission or ministry to address tea workers’ issues; ensuring access to drinking water, safety gear, adequate toilets, advanced medical facilities; and extending maternity leave for women workers with wage benefits to six months.

Dhaka University student Joyeeka Rajbhor, Jagannath University student Saral Banarjee, Jahangirnagar University student Mikha Piregu and human rights activist Anisuzzaman, among others, spoke at the event in the capital’s Shahbagh.