Terai Dooars News- Tea workers may end strike, decision today

Wed Aug 10 2011/ Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay/IE:  Responding to a government appeal, workers’ unions may end the strike that started on Tuesday at 189 tea gardens at Dooars and Terai region demanding wage revision.
After meeting tea garden owners and representatives of the Adivasi Vikas Parishad, \an organisation based at Jalpaiguri that looks after the interests of Adivasis there, the state government appealed to the workers to lift the strike and come to the negotiating table.
Another round of talks between the three parties will be held on Wednesday. “We have told our grassroots leaders at tea gardens to take a decision. You will come to know tomorrow,’’ Birsa Tirkey, general secretary of the Parishad, who attended the meeting, told The Indian Express.
At present, workers in the Dooars and Terai regions get daily wages of Rs 67 and they want it to be increased to Rs 130. The state government agrees that the wages should ideally be increased to Rs 130, but says it will be able to raise it to Rs 90 only as of now.
The Parishad called for a three-day strike in tea gardens staring Tuesday and on August 12, they have called for a total bandh at Dooars and Terai regions.
Tea garden owners are ready to hike the wages to Rs 90 but want it to be staggered. “We want to make the hike in three instalments, over three years. It is not possible to increase it in one go. If we are forced to do it, we will have to close down the gardens given the financial condition we are in,’’ Monojit Dasgupta, secretary of the Indian Tea Association, which took part in the negotiations, said. 
The state government said it wanted normal atmosphere to come back at the tea gardens. “We are sympathetic with the cause of the workers but no talks could be carried forward with a strike on,’’ said Minister for Labour Purnendu Bose, who along with Minister for Commerce and Industries Partha Chatterjee represented the government. 

Strike hits functioning of tea gardens in Dooars

Jalpaiguri (WB), Aug 9 (PTI) Work was affected at 191 tea gardens across Dooars and Terai areas of Jalpaiguri district today in response to the indefinite strike call given by Progressive Tea Workers'' Union, the labour arm of Adivasi Vikash Parishad (AVP) outfit, official sources said.

An estimated 2.5 lakh labourers work in these plantations and the union was demanding their wage hike, the sources said.

Complicating the situation further, the tea garden Coordination and Defence Committee, another outfit, today separately called a three-day shut down of plantations in Terai and Dooars region from August 10 on the same issue.

The committee, a local outfit, also called a north Bengal general strike on August 12, bringing traffic and business under purview, to highlight the ''plight'' of tea workers, a committee spokesman said.

Meanwhile a Vikash Parishad team left for Kolkata today for discussing the tea garden issue with West Bengal government at the initiative of North Bengal Development Affairs Minister Gautam Deb, according to Parishad sources.
PTI COR SUS

But according to Indian Times:  

Tea talks lukewarm, Dooars bandh continues

JALPAIGURI/KOLKATA/TNN/Aug 10, 2011: Traffic on all three national highways crisscrossing the foothills of the Terai and Dooars came to a halt on Tuesday as the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parshad (ABAVP) enforced a shutdown demanding higher wages for tea garden workers.

Talks at the government level in Kolkata failed to break the deadlock between the planters and the Adivasi-dominated Progressive Tea Garden Workers' Union. Stray incidents of violence were reported on NH 31(D) that connects Siliguri with Jalpaiguri.

The ABAVP demands a huge increase in wages - from Rs 67 to Rs 250.

Representatives of the Consultative Committee of Planter's Association made it clear in a meeting with industries minister Partha Chatterjee that they cannot manage such a massive hike wages of garden workers. The garden owners said many gardens did not have the resources to offer to workers more than what they were paying now.

Chatterjee wanted to strike a balance - persuade the workers to call off the strike without compromising with their demand for a wage revision. But it proved difficult.

"A new government has just taken over and is trying to improve the situation in the state. Strikes should not take place at this critical moment," Chatterjee said. "But if workers withdraw their strike, the garden owners should not think that they have withdrawn their demand. There should be such an understanding that either side goes back with the feeling that it has got something out of the negotiations," the minister added.

Planters instead proposed a three-tier hike of Rs 8 each, spread over a period of three years that pushes the wages to Rs 91. Chatterjee appealed to owners and workers in the tea gardens to end the dispute over wages in the tea industry in north Bengal through discussions. "Both sides should behave in such a way that the tea industry is not harmed."

The Progressive Tea Garden Workers' Union, however stuck to its stand, though the other tea trade unions are ready to make peace if the planters agree to hike the wages to Rs 90 in the first year, as has been the agreement in the Darjeeling tea gardens led by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha trade union.

Later in the afternoon, Chatterjee accompanied by labour minister Purnendu Bose heard the workers' union. "The CM gives a lot of importance to tea gardens. But it is important that they keep the gardens operative. We know that they have a lot of problems such as education, drinking water facilities, electricity, transport and hundred-day work. They were deprived," said Chatterjee.

Sukra Munda, chairman of the adivasi trade union said that they did not go on a strike at will. "We were compelled to go on a strike after a series of meeting fell through. Our demands are the minimum for our survival. The minister has appealed to us to call off the strike. We will discuss this before we arrive at a decision," he said. The meeting with the union representatives went till night with no signs of the agitation being lifted from Wednesday.