Ensure minimum wage for tea workers
PHOTO: DRIKNEWS
It is surprising that a tea worker in Bangladesh gets Tk 45 for a day's work. How can the tea garden owners pay such extremely low wage to their workers in a democratic country? On the other hand, it is not understood how the government of Bangladesh could approve this wage? In Bangladesh a day labourer gets Tk 200 to Tk 400 in the agriculture sector along with one meal for one day's work. The wage varies from season to season. But none can imagine a day labourer getting less than Tk 200 a day. The tea companies have been making millions of taka profit every year but have been depriving the workers of minimum reasonable wage. Most of our industrialists have one thing in common -- they deprive their workers of proper wage. Till today they are not ready to recognise the contributions of the labourers at their ventures. We saw that government had to intervene to increase the minimum wage of the garment workers. But even today they are not getting reasonable wage. I would urge the government to fix the minimum reasonable wage for the tea workers. Bangladesh government must protect the basic interest of its citizens, even if they are poor tea workers.Mohammad Ashraf Hossain
Ramna, Dhaka
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