The Hindu Business Line : ‘Dam Dim Tea Estate management forced to declare lock-out’

Kolkata, Sept. 5 The management of Dam Dim Tea Estate in Dooars in the northern part of West Bengal was forced to declare a lock-out in the tea estate from September 4 after the Manager, three Assistant Managers and two Welfare Officers were kept in confinement for about 17 hours, according to a press statement issued by Tata Tea Ltd.

compulsory employment

The workers, according to the statement, were demanding compulsory employment for temporaries in the factory irrespective of the requirement.

They also demanded that the green leaf plucked on Saturday would have to be manufactured on Monday as factory workers would not work on Sunday in spite of the existing practice in the tea estate to work on Sunday with a compensatory holiday.

As a result, an estimated 46,000 kg of green tea plucked on Saturday were damaged causing huge financial loss to the estate, the statement added.

A spokesperson for the Coordination Committee of Plantation Workers, while to talking to Business Line over phone from Dooars, complained that the Tata Tea management declared lock-out in Dam Dim Tea Estate without following the law of the land.

Under the Industrial Disputes Act, the management was supposed to explore through negotiation all avenues for a settlement of the issues in dispute before declaring a lock-out; and more important, an advance notice was needed before declaring the lock-out. No such thing had been done in this case.

Resentment among workers against the management was brewing for the past one month following the decision to adopt certain practices in regard to deployment of labour not only in Dam Dim Tea Estate but also in three others tea estates of the company namely, Nowera Nuddy, Rugamuttee and Batabari, the spokesman added.

More Stories on : Trade & Labour Unions | Tea | Plantations | West Bengal

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