In the plush hills of Sylhet, the workers on the Nationwide Tea Company (NTCL) gardens, including these on the Daldali and Lakkatura tea estates, are going thru a dire field.
For the previous three months, the workers grasp got no wages.
Some are surviving on handouts from local authorities, whereas others are counting on leaves and vegetables from the gardens they work to feed their households.
As wages dwell unpaid, the workers are left wondering how they’ll effect it thru yet one more day.
Sitting within the color of a tree advance the Daldali Tea Garden, Subal Nayek, a employee of the estate, acknowledged, “I possess no longer grasp cash to amass rice. I couldn’t buy any vegetables within the previous month on memoir of I did now not grasp the cash. And I grasp now not eaten fish for a lengthy time.”
Nayek explained that whereas the tea garden authorities present some flour every week, it is hardly ever ever adequate to help households.
“The district commissioner (DC) gave us some rice, and I gathered wild leaves and vegetables from the garden to relish. That is all we can space up. Or no longer it is a fight, nonetheless we’re by some capability surviving,” he acknowledged.
Nayek is rarely any longer on my own on this suffering. Tea workers all the diagram in which thru the 18 tea gardens owned by NTC in Sylhet, Moulvibazar, and Habiganj districts are going thru identical hardships.
These gardens, which memoir for 7% of Bangladesh’s total tea production, grasp stopped paying workers’ wages for 3 months. With a day after day wage of factual Tk170, the workers had been already finding it hard to procure by, no longer to relate build the relaxation for the future.
The sphere is factual as grim within the Lakkatura Tea Garden, yet one more NTC-owned estate. Anita Lohar, a female employee within the garden, acknowledged, “I ate bread ideal night. This morning, I boiled some taro leaves for breakfast. I possess no longer know if I could grasp the relaxation to relish tonight.
“There’s nothing left within the dwelling, and even the stores may maybe maybe maybe also honest no longer give us the relaxation on credit score anymore,” she added.
Subal Monda, an elderly working at Lakkatura Tea Garden for virtually 30 years acknowledged he had by no diagram skilled the relaxation admire this sooner than.
“There had been complications with wages within the previous, nonetheless by no diagram sooner than has the fee been delayed for 3 consecutive months. Right here is the predominant time I’ve viewed this kind of field,” he acknowledged.
Monda added, “We work for terribly diminutive cash. The wages we procure are barely adequate to help a family. In consequence, now we grasp got by no diagram been ready to construct. With wages stopped for 3 months, we’re all struggling to effect ends meet. Many folks are utterly ingesting once a day.”
For workers admire Ayesha Begum, the field is even more hard.
“We can space as a lot as head with out food, nonetheless the precise anxiousness is for our early life,” she acknowledged.
“I genuinely grasp two sons in faculty, and their tests are coming up. However I grasp now not been ready to pay their examination prices. Each day, they advance dwelling from faculty and convey on memoir of they know they cannot sit down for his or her tests with out the cost,” she acknowledged.
The workers’ predicament is worsened by the truth that they are unable to search out work in other locations. Biren Singh, president of the Bangladesh Tea Workers Federation in Sylhet, explained that no person delivery air the tea garden hires the workers as they mediate they’ll return to the garden when it reopens.
“Right here is the excuse they spend to lead clear of hiring tea workers, even for home work. So, there’s practically no different for them to accomplish delivery air the gardens,” Singh acknowledged.
On 5 August, following the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s authorities, NTC Chairman Sheikh Kabir Ahmed and other directors went into hiding, which resulted within the non-fee of wages.
NTC officers explained that workers’ wages are transferred thru the Krishi Bank, nonetheless since they’ve no longer got funds from the financial institution, the wages grasp no longer been paid.
In step with Raju Goyala, president of the Bangladesh Tea Workers Union in Sylhet Valley, the three NTC-owned tea estates in Sylhet, including Lakkatur, Keowachhra, and Daldali, make spend of round 1,180 workers.
About 100,000 folks, including family, within the distance are genuinely going thru severe hardships.
“After wages had been stopped, workers continued working till 20 October. However with out food at dwelling, how may maybe maybe maybe also they retain working? This is the rationale they stopped working on 21 October. Since then, all NTC-owned gardens grasp effectively been shut down,” Goyala acknowledged.
Even the workers who managed to procure work delivery air are struggling.
Rambhajan Kairi, a extinct regular secretary of the Tea Workers Union, revealed that greater than 80% of the NTC garden workers can no longer grasp adequate cash three meals a day.
“Most effective 20% of the households are managing on memoir of a few of their contributors work delivery air the gardens or in lemon plantations,” Kairi explained.
A ray of hope: Rate of arrears
After three months of uncertainty, the workers lastly got some hope because the Nationwide Tea Company agreed to pay the workers’ arrears in instalments, with the predominant instalment scheduled to be paid on Thursday (5 December).
This decision was reached all the diagram in which thru a tripartite meeting between NTC, tea workers, and workers on the Department of Labor’s situation of enterprise in Moulvibazar on Sunday night (1 December).
The meeting concluded that starting on Thursday, two weeks’ price of the workers’ six-week wage arrears can be paid, along with one month’s wage for monthly wage workers.
The ideal four weeks of arrears can be paid in instalments by 31 March. Furthermore, it was agreed that from December onwards, weekly wages can be paid normally.
Syed Mahmud Hasan, the managing director of NTC, acknowledged, “Because of a lack of funds, we haven’t been ready to pay the workers’ wages till now. However with the authorities’s intervention, the impasse has been resolved, and we can launch paying the workers’ arrears in instalments. The first instalment can be paid by Thursday.”
Raju Goyala, leader of the Tea Workers Union, added, “Once the predominant instalment of the arrears is paid, the workers will return to work.”
