Silchar, Feb. 10: A week after the owners of Aylabari tea plantation in Karimganj declared a lockout at their estate, the Intuc-affiliated workers’ union made arrangements for a tripartite meeting on Thursday to resolve the impasse that has left 500 labourers jobless.
The Char Cha Sramik Union has sent invitation for talks to the Karimganj district administration and the garden management at its head office in Calcutta, said general secretary of the union, D.P. Goala.
Goala is also the urban development minister in the Tarun Gogoi cabinet.
The 522-hectare garden which produces 400,000kg of the CTC crop annually, was closed after a “a few workers owing allegiance to the CPI, were insisting on the reinstatement of four labourers, who had been suspended for their blatant indiscipline,” said the manager of the garden, Parash Nath Singh.
At the tripartite meeting, the workers’ union will not only demand that the lockout be revoked, but also their long-pending provident fund and Puja bonus.
Singh, however, ruled out any possibility of reconsidering the cases of the four suspended labourers.
This enraged the labourers, seven of whom had launched a hunger strike yesterday.
They paid no attention to Karimganj deputy commissioner B.N. Sharma who requested them not to aggravate the situation.
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