33% salary raise for tea staff

Darjeeling, June 28: The Darjeeling tea industry has settled for a 33 per cent hike in the gross salaries of sub-staff for a three-year period at a time garden owners and trade unions in the Terai and the Dooars are struggling to reach an agreement on the wage revision for even workers.

The agreement between the representatives of various garden unions and officials of the Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) was signed around 1.30am today.

“According to the agreement, there will be a broad increase in the gross salary of the other monthly rated employees (commonly known as the sub-staff) by 33 per cent. The wage hike will be with retrospective effect from April 1 this year and the arrears will be cleared between August and November,” Sandeep Mukherjee, the secretary of the DTA, said today.

Unions representing the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, CPRM, Congress and the ABGL have signed the agreement. P.T. Sherpa, the president of the Morcha-affiliated Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labour Union, said: “Earlier, we had managed to increase the daily wage of tea garden workers by Rs 23, which was an all-time high. Now, the sub-staff have also got the highest increment. The salary of the sub-staff will increase by about Rs 700-Rs 1000, while the earlier hike used to be in the range of Rs 250-300. This is a historic achievement for us.”

The exact increase in the salaries of various grades of the sub-staff — who basically are supervisors in tea plantations — cannot be ascertained as their remuneration varies depending on the number of years they have been in service.

At the entry level in any of three grades , the sub-staff will get a basic salary along with dearness allowance (DA), which is fixed at 50 per cent of the basic salary. During the second year, the gross salary of the same employee will include the basic, an annual increment, a variable dearness allowance at 8 per cent of the basic salary along with 50 per cent DA. During the third year, the VDA will be increased to 16 per cent and the sub-staff will also be entitled to two annual increments.

For Grade 1, the annual increment is Rs 22, while those for Grade 2 and 3, the amount have been fixed at Rs 21 and Rs 20 respectively, said a source in the DTA.

The wage agreement will be valid for a three-year period and about 9,000 sub-staff members in various tea gardens of the hills will benefit from the agreement. The deal was clinched after two rounds of negotiations between the garden owners and the trade unions.

Talks for hike in the salaries of staffs — clerks, medical and technicians — in the various gardens are expected to take place in July. “We are confident that the agreement for the staff will be signed in July,” said Sherpa.

Courtesy: The Telegraph