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Turmoil in Assam's tea gardens

By Barun Das Gupta

GUWAHATI Sept. 30. On Monday night, the management of the Khobang Tea Estate in Upper Assam declared a lockout following a police firing on workers in which seven persons were killed. The workers were demanding a 20 per cent bonus.

The incident, INTUC sources say, is the manifestation of a deeper malaise — the slow but steady erosion of the influence of the INTUC-affiliated Assam Cha Mazdoor Sangh (ACMS) on the tea workers.

Many INTUC leaders agree with this view but none would go on record. "We are getting totally isolated from the workers," one of them admitted. The reason is the "check-off" system under which the subscription to the union is deducted by the management from the salary of the workers and paid to the union, that is, ACMS.

Ever since the system was introduced in the 1970s, ACMS leaders have been steadily losing touch with the workers because money comes automatically to them, without their having to go to the workers, listen to their grievances and take these up with the garden managements.

In fact, day-to-day trade union work has practically come to a stop and, in the words of a senior ACMS leader who does not want to be named, "the workers are now looking on us as management's men."

To come back to Monday's incident at Khobang, the garden workers contributed about Rs. 80,000 to the ACMS this year.

According to Girish Barpatragohain, secretary of the Assam Cha Karmachari Sangh (ACKS is the union of employees or `babus', a sister organisation of the ACMS and an INTUC affiliate), most of the workers who were demanding a 20 per cent bonus belonged to the ACMS.

The ACMS leadership had entered into an agreement with the management settling for a 15 per cent bonus. "The other union controlled by the CPI(ML) has practically no following among the workers. It was our men who had rejected the agreement on 15 per cent bonus and were demanding 20 per cent," Mr. Barpatragohain, said over the phone from Dum Duma.

An ACMS leader, who does not want to be named, agrees. "The workers have, by and large, rejected the 15 per cent bonus agreement in almost all gardens. And we are afraid of facing them," he admits.

Neither he nor Mr. Barpatragohain rules out the possibility of clashes in other tea gardens on the bonus issue. "The entire tea belt is tense and workers are seething with anger," they said.

They also question the industry's claim that it is going through such a crisis that payment of even the 8.33 per cent statutory bonus has become difficult.

The alienation of the workers from the INTUC has wider political implications.

The tea labour community has been an assured vote bank of the Congress and has stood by the party even in its worst days.

They are the decisive factor in about 30 of the 126 Assembly constituencies in the Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys.

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