Centre increases minimum wage rates for workers
This adjustment is aimed at helping workers cope with the rising cost of living.
As the cold war between the Joint Forum and the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha trade union, both the groups on Friday held separate gate meetings at different tea gardens as part of protests demanding minimum wages in the tea sector.
Though the Morcha trade union, the Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labor Union (DTDPLU) maintains that it is a part of the Joint Forum, it did not participate in the recent agitation programmes conducted by the Forum.
“Gate meetings were held on Friday by our organisation in different tea gardens to make the garden people aware of the positive green signal that was given by the government in the last meeting, where it has said the amount of minimum wages would be announced on 30 July,” DTDPLU general secretary Bharat Thakuri said.
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“However, we feel that the owners will try to delay it and say that the workers should also work according to the facilities they are given. We had to let the workers know about all this,” he added.
One of the main motives of the DTDPLU’s gate meetings on Friday was to take credit for this recent development. The union has claimed that the government acted on the minimum wages because union members had taken up the matter with the state government.
On the other hand, CPI-M leader and member of the Joint Forum, Saman Pathak, also said in one of the gate meetings that the state government has given them the assurance that the minimum wages would be announced on 30 July.
“However, we do not have much faith on the state government and the garden owners, due to which we have postponed our agitation till the 30th of this month. If our demand is not met, we will intensify our agitation, which could begin the very night of 30 July. We want workers to be ready for that,” he said.
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