PM Hasina: All of us have to look after tea workers

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said everyone must look after the well being of the tea workers who work very hard amid difficult situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.

“They (tea workers) work very hard and the owners earn. It is the responsibility of all to look after their wellbeing,” she said.

The prime minister was speaking with the 13-member delegation of tea garden owners in a meeting to discuss the wage hike demand of tea garden workers at her official residence Ganabhaban.

Sheikh Hasina said: “There is no doubt that the economy and commerce had been affected by Covid-19. But we have to look out for these hard-working people as well."

File photo of tea garden workers at a tea plantation Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

At the meeting, it was decided that the daily wage for tea workers was set at Tk170, Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Ahmad Kaikaus confirmed the development to the media.

Kaikaus said the Tk50 wage increase for the tea garden workers have been set by the prime minister on behalf of the workers.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said at the meeting: “The tea industry is very important to us. Once it was a major cash crop for our country. We used to earn a lot of money by exporting. Due to the good financial condition of the people of the country, the demand for tea increased a lot in the country.”

She said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman took over as the chairman of the Tea Board in 1957 and granted citizenship to these workers who did not have any citizenship.

The prime minister said he (Bangabandhu) also gave some other facilities to the tea garden workers.

She said during her 1996-2001 term she gave some other facilities considering the importance of the tea industry.

Tea Garden Dhaka Tribune

She also said the Awami League government took initiatives to expand the tea gardens from Sylhet and Chattogram to other places in the country including Panchagarh, Kurigram, Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat.

Meanwhile, The protesting tea workers accepted the new daily wage of Tk170 fixed by the prime minister.

Confirming the matter to Dhaka Tribune, Nripen Pal, general secretary of the central committee of Bangladesh Tea Workers Union, said: “We got what we wanted.”

He said: “The entire working class was looking at the honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to announce the revised wages. The wages declared by her were accepted by the workers. They will go back to work on Sunday."

The workers of the country’s 167 tea plantations, including 92 in Moulvibazar, continued their indefinite strike for the 17th day on Friday demanding that they are paid Tk300-a-day wages instead of the current Tk120.

As their demand was not met, they decided to go on a full-scale strike from August 13.

On August 20, after a meeting with the Labour Department, tea workers’ union leaders withdrew their indefinite strike after assurance of raising their wages to Tk145 from Tk120.

However, later in the day, the general tea garden workers rejected the Tk25 daily wage hike fixed by the government and vowed to continue their movement.

After holding meetings with tea garden owners and other stakeholders in the past two weeks, the tea workers’ union agreed to the resumption of work from Monday and get Tk120 as wages for the time being, but that was rejected by the general workers again.

On Tuesday, tea estate owners claimed that the ongoing strike by tea garden workers in Moulvibazar has caused an estimated loss of Tk161.92 crore.