Tea workers daily wages set Tk 170

The daily wage of tea workers has been fixed at Tk 170, after a three-week long protest for pay hike.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina held a meeting with major tea estate owners on Saturday afternoon. New daily wage was fixed during that meeting.

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Ahmad Kaykaus informed this information.

The movement of tea workers started on August 9, when workers from 241 tea gardens of the country abstained from work for two hours, demanding Tk300 as daily wages. 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.