Tea Garden Unions Files PIL In SC

Kolkata: Five unions of tea garden workers in several States have tied up with IUF, the international union of food and plantation workers, and registered a PIL in Supreme Court demanding, among other things, immediate payment of statutory dues to those employed in various tea gardens either sick, closed or mismanaged. Several State Governments, two employers' associations, namely, ITA and Upasi, and Tea Board, among others, have been respondents. The figure at the all-India level therefore would be staggering. The crisis facing the tea garden workers has come up for a review during the three-day conference currently being held here under the aegis of IUF. More than 40 representatives of various unions of tea workers from six States, namely, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Tripura are attending the conference. The IUF office-bearers felt that workers of the closed gardens should be encouraged to form co-operatives and run them. The operation management committees (OMCs) running many gardens in the northern part of West Bengal was not necessarily the answer to the present crisis as not all the OMCs were running well.