DIBRUGARH, June 14?Three tea executives gone to the netherworld in a mater of a fortnight in the State is reason enough to explore some conflict resolution measures. As most cases of violence in the tea gardens in the state relate to labour unrest and their problems, labour leaders feel that a meaningful implementation of the Plantation Labour Act of 1951 would go a long way in ensuring peace in the estates.
Speaking to The Assam Tribune at length today, the general secretary of the influential Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha, Madhusudan Khandait said? ?We want an amendment to the antiquated Plantation Labour Act. Even without the amendment, a full implementation of the Act in its present form would go a long way in reassuring the labour force that the management cares for its workers.? The ACMS president, Paban Singh Ghatowar tried his best to have the Act amended in Parliament, during 1992-93, when he was Union Deputy Minister for Labour. However, the amendment bill was stalled in the Rajya Sabha, after the Lok Sabha passed it. The matter rests there.
What irks the knowledgeable labour leader is that the Plantation Labour Act has a very weak penal provision. Most of the offences do not attract more than a nominal monetary fine, ranging between Rs 20 and 500. The tea managements are happy to pay the pittance and continue brow-beating the Act, rues Khandait. ?Unless the penal provisions are made tougher in the Act, it will continue to remain a largely toothless piece of legislation,? he added.
However, the veteran trade union leader did concede that the existing labourers? welfare provisions in the Act ?are still sufficient to satisfy our present needs.? He said that the tea labourers do not ask for the sky. ?All we demand is clean living quarters, healthy drinking water, basic health care and some education for the children?, he summed up. He added that not all tea gardens are found wanting in meeting the genuine demands of the workers. He was especially appreciative of tea estates like Towkok, Muttrapore and Borsila in the Sivasagar district, where the management has provided for piped drinking water to the labourers.
There are several areas in the State where shallow ground water is not fit for human consumption, as these have a high iron content. The need in such places are for deep tubewells, as ground water below 150 feet from the surface is much better and potable than that available at 30 to 40 feet beneath.
He resented that the labourers? health and hygiene aspects are generally ignored by the managements. Doctors and nurses are rarely available in the prescribed ratios in the tea garden hospitals. Against this general neglect of the labourers, the executives enjoy the luxury of check-ups at expensive private hospitals ?We are not saying that the managers do not deserve the best health care, but please give our basic needs,? says the ACMS secretary.
As for the emerging trend of a restive work force, Khandait says this is due to the increasing number of unemployeds among the tea labourers. The tea garden owners are reluctant to have any more of the permanent workers, preferring to make do with faltu workers (casual labourers). The casuals can be hired and fired at will, but the permanent ones are entitled to all the facilities provided in the Plantation Labour Act.
Of late, the tea garden owners have come up with a formula for permanent workers: 75 labourers for every lakh kilo of tea made. This formula has not yet been agreed to by the ACMS, saying if this is made applicable, the number of unemployed would skyrocket.
Even so, the ACMS claims to have successfully negotiated the creation of 69,000 posts of permanent labourers in the State?s tea gardens in the past four years. ?We are concerned that even vacancies arising out of death of permanent labourers are filled up by casual workers. We are talking to the owners to redress the matter,? informs Khandait.
Khandait said that another issue that is yet to be resolved is the matter of having permanent welfare officers in all the tea gardens. ?The trend we have noticed in the past ten years is that the managements recruit assistant managers who double up as welfare officers. The post of a welfare officer is a statutory requirement as per the Plantation Labour Act, but that of an assistant manager is not. We want that all the welfare officer post vacancies be filled up as a matter of legal obligation,? he said. Asked how many posts of welfare officers are vacant in the Brahmaputra Valley tea estates, Khandait pegged the figure at ?about a hundred.?