Minimum wages in tea
The Asom Mojuri Sramik Union (affiliated to New Trade Union Initiative, NTUI) has been struggling for more than a year for enhancement of minimum wages for tea-labourers. Till sometime back, while it was Rs 94 a day, the AMSU (NTUI) demanded Rs 300 a day. The Asom Chah Majdur Sangha, affiliated to Congress, sabotaged the united demand of the tea labourers by surreptiously signing an agreement with CCpa, that too for a meagre Rs 111.5 in contrast with the Rs 169 minimum wages declared by the Government of Assam. The AMSU has therefore decided to launch a relentless struggle for Rs 300 minimum wages. It has started a 50-hour relay hunger strike here today at Jorhat, the heart of the tea-country, while hundreds of tea-labourers (both men and women) are participating in it, the demonstrators, led by Robeson Munda and Krisnakanta Gogoi have also been demanding payment of Rs 400 crore as arrear PF, ration and unpaid wages to 15000 workers of ATC gardens.
Devabrata Sharma, Jorhat

Frontier
Vol. 47, No. 51, June 28 - July 4, 2015