Gorkha Students, JNU writes Under the context of triparty talks for tea garden laborer's wage revision, Sending you the poster (Click Here) which we brought today in JNU campus in solidarity of the ongoing demand of the tea garden workers under the banner of Coordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers Union (CPTWU). Behind the idyllic hills, the scenic gardens, the “romance of the two leaves and a bud”, and the “smiling faces” of the workers, what remains carefully hidden is the ugly truth of sub-human wages, more than a thousand starvation deaths, and seething anger. The ongoing wage negotiations in the gardens in the hills, dooars & the terai have yet again brought to fore what the West Bengal government and the industry wishes to brush under the carpet. It gives us yet another opportunity to speak up against the lies and cunning of the industry as also the complicity of the state in depriving the workers of their basic minimum level of sustenance.
The ongoing crisis in North Bengal, the historic demand for Gorkhaland and the solution provided thereof is reflective of the sustained colonial exploitation and domination which finds its most blatant reflection in the Tea industry, where “Darjeeling Tea” is romanticised. This region of Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars is mostly featured by tea gardens and the population engaged in it. Approximately, 80% of the people forms the constituency fettered in this gigantic machine of production which is totally based on the exploitation and immiserisation of the working populace of this region since the days of British colonialism. The huge profits extracted from this exploitative tea plantations (according to the Darjeeling Chamber of Commerce, tea industry in the hills generates an average of Rs. 450 crores revenue annually, equal to that of the tourism industry in the region) has been in continuation creating a vicious cycle of poverty and continued appendage of the local work force for generation after generation for this industry.
We stand by the just demand of the workers to increase wages from Rs.90 to Rs.320. We reject the recent offers by the Planters and Government of abysmally low wage hike of just Rs. 21 and Rs.40 in phased manner in three years. We salute and stand in solidarity with the uncompromising struggle of workers for their rightful demand. Any attempt to break the unity of the workers or dilute the demands or betray the struggle must be resisted at all cost. We the Gorkha Students,(Jawaharlal Nehru University) stand in complete solidarity with the ongoing struggle of tea garden workers.
Our Demand to government and planter associations:
Increase the wage of workers from Rs. 90/Rs.95 in Darjeeling, Dooars and Terai tea estates to Rs. 322.
Submitted by : Dawa Sherpa - Gorkha Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University
The ongoing crisis in North Bengal, the historic demand for Gorkhaland and the solution provided thereof is reflective of the sustained colonial exploitation and domination which finds its most blatant reflection in the Tea industry, where “Darjeeling Tea” is romanticised. This region of Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars is mostly featured by tea gardens and the population engaged in it. Approximately, 80% of the people forms the constituency fettered in this gigantic machine of production which is totally based on the exploitation and immiserisation of the working populace of this region since the days of British colonialism. The huge profits extracted from this exploitative tea plantations (according to the Darjeeling Chamber of Commerce, tea industry in the hills generates an average of Rs. 450 crores revenue annually, equal to that of the tourism industry in the region) has been in continuation creating a vicious cycle of poverty and continued appendage of the local work force for generation after generation for this industry.
We stand by the just demand of the workers to increase wages from Rs.90 to Rs.320. We reject the recent offers by the Planters and Government of abysmally low wage hike of just Rs. 21 and Rs.40 in phased manner in three years. We salute and stand in solidarity with the uncompromising struggle of workers for their rightful demand. Any attempt to break the unity of the workers or dilute the demands or betray the struggle must be resisted at all cost. We the Gorkha Students,(Jawaharlal Nehru University) stand in complete solidarity with the ongoing struggle of tea garden workers.
Our Demand to government and planter associations:
Increase the wage of workers from Rs. 90/Rs.95 in Darjeeling, Dooars and Terai tea estates to Rs. 322.
- Reopen closed and abandoned tea estates immediately.
- Casual labour should also be brought under the purview of Plantation Labour Act, 1951.
- Backlog of unpaid Provident fund and gratuity should be cleared without delay.
- Declare and implement Minimum Wage for tea Plantation workers.
- Grant legal ownership of housing space to workers.
Submitted by : Dawa Sherpa - Gorkha Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University
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