If anyone thinks that Tk 300 daily wage of a tea garden worker is too much, they should look, through their own moral eyes, at their own daily spending as a human being, given the present inflation situation in the country and then decide. Prices of all daily essentials have almost doubled with the latest unprecedented jump in price after about a 50 per cent hike in fuel price. To maintain life has become impossible not just for the low income people but also middle income people as well.
Tea garden workers are poor women and belong to the socially neglected class in society, but it does not necessarily mean the owners of tea gardens would exploit them by just paying Tk 120 for a day’s wage as they are being paid now. Tk 120 per day as wages makes their monthly income only Tk 3600. Can a person survive with this money? Still, as women they must have their children and babies to support.
We hardly hear tea garden workers go on strike, but the current inflation has forced them to take this measure with demand of Tk 300 as daily wage from the garden owners. According to a report published in this newspaper around 1.5 lakh tea workers of 231 tea gardens across the country joined the strike programme Saturday. They would not return to the garden until their demand for a hike is met, they said.
When they say that their demand for raising a worker’s daily wage to Tk 300 is very “reasonable”, we find it true as all daily essentials have become pricier in recent days. Still, spending a whole working day in the garden if they do not get this amount for their life to continue, they must be very wretched human beings indeed.
Obviously, if the tea garden owners increase the workers’ pay, — and we urge them to do it on an urgent basis — they will increase the prices of tea. True, by drinking tea one does not have to survive, but it is indeed one among the daily necessities and it should be looked at that garden owners do not make this commodity too costlier for the consumers. The poor women tea workers demand ought to be met with a just and sympathetic manner so that as part of Bangladesh’s society they are also able to survive with some dignity.
