Long pending dispute over tea wage may get resolved on Friday

SILIGURI: Prevailing stalemate in wage negotiation for tea workers in West Bengal may find a direction towards resolution in the vital tripartite meet to take place on Friday at the Mini Secretariat of Government of West Bengal at Siliguri. But the progress may not yield long lasting fruit if any of the three parties concerned fails in keeping interest of the industry as first priority.

After over ten fruitless rounds of meetings between state Government, Planters Organizations and Trade Unions, the tomorrow’s meeting is going to be guided by state labour Minister Mr. Malay Ghatak. He will be accompanied by state Panchayat Minister Mr. Subrata Mukherjee and Agriculture Minister Purnendu Bose, both veteran trade unionists.

“We will definitely find out some solution,” said confident Mr. Mukherjee. On the other side, CITU Darjeeling District Secretary Mr. Saman Pathak expressed his optimism. From the employer's front, “We hope to find a reasonable landing,” said Mr. Prabir Bhattacharya, Secretary General of Tea Association of India.

The vital meet is taking place amid multi dimensional movement steps already undertaken by a joint forum of the tea workers. TUs affiliated to INTUC, CITU, and many other locally strong political powers are there in the forum excepting INTTUC, TU of the ruling party in West Bengal TMC. Interestingly, BJP has also echoed the same demand. But without getting in to the forum.

The forum is strongly demanding for daily wage of workers to be set as per Minimum Wage Act replacing present system of negotiation once in three years which the planters are not ready to accept. The last wage settlement period expired in 31st March 2014.

But now the main knot remains in proposal of state Government to form a committee to assess various aspects of Minimum wage implementation and to design the process, if needed. But that demands time. Hence, Government wants to have a separate interim wage settlement for that period. As learnt, even if the TUs accept the interim settlement, they will not be ready to accept it for more than 6 months, while the Government wants minimum 1 year.

However, positive attitude of all, just before the meeting, brings in hope for a resolution of the issue to come out on Friday. But, “For that, all needs to be ready to sacrifice certain amount of own interest for greater interest of the industry,” said industry observers.