‘Our movement will go on’
A government-convened meeting to discuss revising wages of tea garden workers ended without any decision yesterday.
The Department of Labour yesterday held a day-long meeting with workers at its Sreemangal's office in Moulvibazar.
As the officials and workers could not reach a consensus over the wage hike, the department will hold another meeting with both workers and tea garden owners today at the department's head office in Dhaka.
"In today's (yesterday) meeting, I heard problems and demand of workers. Then I requested the workers to resume work. At the same time, we assured them that we will continue discussions with owners about the wage hike. But the workers did not agree," said Khaled Mamun Chowdhury, director general of the Department of Labour.
"We will hold another tripartite meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at 4:00pm in Dhaka," he told this correspondent last evening.
However, the workers remain rigid to continue their work abstention until their demand is met.
"We will resume work only after our demands are fulfilled," said Nipen Paul, acting general secretary of Bangladesh Tea Workers Union.
Workers of 166 tea estates across the country, including those in Chattogram and Sylhet, have refrained from working since August 13 demanding a hike in daily wage from existing Tk 120 to 300.
Meanwhile, tea workers held daylong demonstrations and rallies in different gardens to press home their demands yesterday.
Around 11:00am, workers blocked roads in Gazipur area of Moulvibazar's Kulaura upazila and observed a one-and-a-half hour hunger strike.
Addressing the programme, a female worker Gouri Almik said, "We don't want to conduct any movement. But we have no alternative. It is impossible to survive with a daily wage of Tk 120. We demand a wage hike immediately."
"Now, it requires more than Tk 150 to buy a dozen of eggs. In such a situation, how can we run our family with a daily wage of Tk 120? I call upon the authorities concerned to raise our wage for our survival," said Uttam Kalwar, a tea worker leader.
According to government statistics, around 1.40 lakh people work in 166 tea gardens across the country.
Meanwhile, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a statement yesterday urged the tea garden owners and the government to raise the wage of tea workers in a rational way, acceptable to the workers.
Students at Dhaka University and Sylhet Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) campuses also expressed their solidarity with the tea workers' movement yesterday, by forming human chains and staging rallies.
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