Citu to fight for tea wages alone - Other trade unions smell CPM plot to embarrass Mamata govt

Siliguri, Aug. 17: Citu today said it would launch its own movement for revised tea wages of garden workers from tomorrow, the decision inviting flak from other trade unions that alleged that the go-it-alone move would only create more stumbling blocks during negotiations with planters.
The CPM’s labour wing, Citu, has considerable clout in the 208 gardens of the Dooars and the Terai, one reason why a 12-hour bandh was successful in the region on Friday, much to the chagrin of Mamata Banerjee. In this situation, the Mamata government might be forced to invite Citu to the talks table alone.
The other trade unions fear that Citu, while trying to gain this political mileage from its position, would only delay the firming up of the deal. The garden workers are currently paid Rs 67 a day.
Citu while justifying its stand said since the government was only giving priority to an Adivasi trade union, it was time to intensify the agitation.
“Since the planters are nonchalant and not accepting our demands and the state government is is giving priority only to Progressive Tea Workers’ Union (tribal trade union) while ignoring us, we decided to intensify our movement,” Ajit Sarkar, the Darjeeling district secretary of Citu, said here today. “Tea trade unions affiliated to Citu in the Terai and Dooars will launch a movement on their own from tomorrow. We will submit memorandums to administrative heads in each block, sub-divisions and districts, seeking state’s immediate intervention. All other trade unions should join hands with us.”
Yesterday, after a plea from planters to come up with a realistic demand, two apex bodies of around 30 trade unions — one of them was also Citu — had agreed to give them seven days time.
Today, other trade bodies like the Intuc, the labour wing of the Congress which is an ally of Trinamul, said it had suspected earlier that the left unions would try to embarrass the new government. Mamata’s threat to enact a law banning bandhs had come in the backdrop of the recent tea strikes in north Bengal and the suspicion that Citu was standing in the way of a solution.
“Some people are doing whatever they feel like, using strikes to fulfill political motives…,” Mamata had said on Friday. The Intuc, however, had supported the strike that day, another cause for Mamata’s angst, specially since the Trinamul trade union does not have any base in the tea gardens.
But today, Aloke Chakraborty, the Darjeeling district Intuc president, said: “Our apprehension has come true. We had mentioned earlier that if the tea wage issue remains pending for months, as it has been happening, Citu and CPM will try to create deterrents in the negotiation process for the Trinamul-Congress government. If Citu leaders are interested in the movements alone, they should walk out of the Coordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers (CCTPW).”
The Intuc is part of the CCTPW, one of the two apex bodies of trade unions. The Defence Committee for Plantation Workers’ Rights, another apex body of trade unions, has also criticised Citu.
“We had a meeting today and decided to write to the chief minister, some other state ministers and government officials, seeking an early solution to the wage hike deal. Any sudden move by constituent union like Citu would set new hurdles in talks,” conevner Samir Roy.
-TT