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Tea pickers in Assam, India
Photo: Ahmad Masood / REUTERS
Up to 400,000 tea plantation workers in Assam, northeast India, are said to have gone on a full-day strike.
Their demand: a doubling of their daily wages to 350 rupees, the equivalent of about 4.75 dollars.
This is reported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which specializes in global human rights issues.
The current daily wage is about two dollars.
The strike follows growing unrest over low wages.
Recently there had already been demonstrations, including human chains and bicycle rallies.
"I cannot afford to lose even a day's wage, but I have no choice but to strike now and speak out," said Prem Kranti, who has been a tea picker in Assam for 15 years, over the phone the Reuters news agency.
"If we want to eat well, look after our children and keep up with the rising cost of living, we need more money. How can we survive with what we get? It's a starvation wage," said the 36-year-old.
Tea industry employs 3.5 million workers
Assam produces more than half of India's tea production.
India's tea industry is the second largest in the world after China, employing 3.5 million workers.
Many of them are victims of job abuse and live in poverty on the lands they work, according to studies cited by Reuters.
Indian tea production fell in the first half of 2020 by 26.4 percent year-on-year to just under 350,000 tons.
Severe floods and the corona pandemic cut production in Assam, the state Tea Board reported last month.
Recently, a state committee proposed wages for the tea workers, but the unions found it to be too low: "The wages proposed by the committee are lower than what the workers expected," said JB Ekka, chief secretary of Assam's workers' welfare.
He did not provide details of the proposed height.
The committee's report is not public.
Meanwhile, Arijit Raha, Secretary General of the Indian Tea Association, asked the tea workers to wait for the state to set wages.
"We have asked the employees not to strike and to wait for the process (the state government) to be completed. We will comply."
Accommodation denied?
The striking workers are also calling for better health and education facilities for their families.
According to tea experts, employers often justify low wages by providing shelter and health care for workers.
However, research by the UK University of Sheffield in Assam in 2018 found that few of these facilities were actually provided.
The corona pandemic worsens the situation of the workers: This would have put the workers in a "more precarious position" due to the rising costs for essential goods, said Bibek Das, secretary of the tea workers union Assam Sangrami Chah Shramik Sangh.
The union has 45,000 members.
That said, "The government has given the (tea) industry a lot of subsidies, but nothing for the workers."
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