Parishad 6 join Trinamul tea wing - Leaders leave tribal outfit as ‘it cannot achieve labourers’ demands’

Garden boost for Mamata

TERAI DOOARS(Siliguri/Jaigaon,) June 27: Six Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad leaders, including four state committee members, have joined the tea trade union of the Trinamul Congress “to bring in change in the socio-economic conditions” of labourers.

Although the six leaders joined the Trinamul Tea Plantation Workers’ Union, they will continue to be with the Parishad. They had never been part of the Progressive Tea Workers’ Union, the Parishad’s tea union.

“As the Parishad is a social organisation, its Progressive Tea Workers’ Union lacks the support of any political party needed to achieve labourers’ demands through collective bargaining,” Rajesh Lakra, the former state organising secretary of the Parishad, said today.

Apart from Lakra, three other state committee members of the Parishad — Jerome Lakra, Parimal Laghun and Amit Tirkey — also left the Parishad.

Lakra was the Parishad-backed JMM candidate in Birpara-Madarihat in the Assembly polls

“Considering the programmes announced by the new government and the chief minister, we are confident that Trinamul and its trade union can bring in a change in the socio-economic condition of labourers. For decades, we had been demanding better job conditions and socio-economic development of Adivasis in tea gardens. But the Left Front government paid no heed to our pleas.”

The Parishad had formed the tea union more than a year ago to address the grievances of workers in the Dooars. The tribal outfit launched its own union as it felt that the Citu and the Intuc were not doing enough to address garden dwellers’ problems. Most of the garden labourers in the Dooars are Adivasis.

Bipin Barla from Madarihat and Lawrence Ekka from Birpara are the two Dooars leaders who have joined Trinamul’s tea workers’ union.

All the six joined the Trinamul labour wing at an event organised by the Indian National Trinamul Trade Union Congress at Dhupguri on Saturday. Inttuc state president Dola Sen was also present at the event.

“The Trinamul trade union had almost no base in the brew belt in the Dooars before the Assembly polls. But a lot of workers have been attracted to the Inttuc because of pro-people policies adopted by the new government in the past one-and-a-half months. We have already formed units in 25 gardens in the Dooars and soon, leaders of the Parishad, Citu and other trade unions, expressed their wish to join the Trinamul tea union,” said Joakim Buxla, the Jalpaiguri district president of the Inttuc.

The Parishad leadership has refused to attach much importance to the departure of the six.

“None of these leaders were with the Progressive Tea Workers’ Union and were hardly active in organisational activities. Their induction into the Trinamul tea union doesn’t suggest the erosion of our base in the brew belt,” said Shukra Munda, the president of the Parishad union.

Parishad state president Birsa Tirkey said the organisation had no plans to take action against the six leaders.

“The Parishad is a voluntary and social organisation. There is no problem if any Parishad member joins a trade union or a political party. We can, however, think of action if their activities go against the interests of the tribal population,” he said over the phone from Calcutta. 

The Telegraph