"Two Habiganj tea gardens suspend weekly wages", August 04 2023

Workers of two tea gardens at Nabiganj in Habiganj continued their indefinite strike for the 12th consecutive day on Thursday alleging that authorities suspended their weekly wages.

The workers of Imam Tea Garden and Bhabani Tea Garden staged demonstration, including a sit-in, in front of the Imam Tea Garden’s office for three hours to mount pressure on the garden authorities to meet their demands. 

The agitating workers claimed that the garden authorities even suspended payment of their regular weekly salaries since July 20, forcing them to begin movement for the basic rights.  

The five-point demands include payment of their due wages and festival allowances, reimbursement of the provident fund, ensuring their house rent and medical allowances.

The workers alleged that the authorities of the gardens did not take any effort to disburse their arrear wages of Tk 81.59 lakh and festival allowances of Tk 14.47 lakh that was remained due since the fiscal year 2019.

Even the garden authorities have not paid the amount from the provident fund to 35 workers, who retired by this time as the authorities already embezzled Tk 55.89 lakh from the fund, they further alleged.

Earlier on Wednesday, the labour leaders staged a demonstration on Dhaka-Sylhet highway to drum up support in favour of their demands.