Tea production and export boom in Bangladesh, but plantation workers live on the margins

Bangladesh's tea industry has set successive records of production and export in the 168 years of commercial production and targets 140 million kg output in 2025.

Bikul Chakrabarty, Moulvibazar Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 1 May 2022, 07:02 PM
Updated : 2 May 2022, 09:22 AM

And yet the workers at the expense of whose labour this growth comes to fruition are systematically denied their rights to a living wage and decent working and living conditions.

The tea garden workers say their leaders organise different programmes to register their demands with the authorities on May Day every year, but with little to no impact.

These workers pluck leaves by the sweat of their brows under the scorching sun and get wet in incessant rain, yet they are remaining victims of pay inequality, unable to meet their basic living costs.

Bangladesh has been an independent nation for 50 years, yet these tea garden workers have been at it since nearly 175 years.

Tea workers also struggle to get timely and good quality healthcare, access clean drinking water, and provide their children with a decent education.

Women bear the heaviest burden of systemic inequality, as they are concentrated in the lowest paid plucking roles and also shoulder most of the unpaid domestic care work.

The workers’ chief demands this year are acquiring land rights and a pay rise which will make living their lives without struggle.

Officials say there are 80,000 labourers  working on 93 tea plantations across Moulvibazar district.

Parimal Singh Baraik, a leader of tea workers, said, “Our wage is Tk 120 and some rations. The workers spend their days with their family, which include their fathers, mothers, spouses and children, with this pay.

“The story of these workers will sound like myth even in these modern times, if no one witnesses them first-hand.”

Bijay Bunarji, another tea workers’ leader from Sreemangal Rajghat Union Parishad Council, said: “The population of tea gardens has gone up now. Even if there are two-three members of a family capable of working, only one will get engaged in the tea plantation.”

“Some families also work temporarily on a daily wage of just Tk 85. It is not sufficient for their education, healthcare or sanitation.”

Another tea workers’ leader Dilip Kairi, who is also a teacher, said these labourers have been residing on a land through their 200-year lineage. “How long will it take them to own the land?” he questioned.

Following the law, the residents of the areas surrounding the tea gardens have won ownership of the land they are living on, but no such luck for these workers despite their hard labour and active contribution to the country’s economy.

One other leader, Md Selim Haque thinks it is crucial to establish government primary schools in these tea gardens to raise the level of their education.

"In the 50 years of independence, not all tea gardens have schools. Some were set up in Sreemangal several years ago on the instruction of the prime minister.”

Bijay Hazra, president of Sreemangal Upazila's Balishira Valley committee of Bangladesh Cha Shramik Union, said Bangladesh began commercially producing tea in 1984 at Sylhet’s Malinicchara.

Prior to that the British and tea estate owners brought in people from different states of the Indian subcontinent, holding out false promises of employment in these tea plantations. These people were primarily engaged in cleaning up the tea estates at the expense of some cash which were of no use outside the gardens.

Some of these workers lost their lives to snake bites and assault by wild animals. But they could not return to their country as they had no money. With no other way, they spend generations engaged in producing tea in these estates their forefathers set up.

Bangladesh Tea Workers Union President Makhan Lal Karmakar said the labourers now want their land rights.

GM Shibli, president of the Bangladesh Tea Parliament Sylhet Valley, said the tea estate owners along with the government are working towards the improvement of the livelihood of these workers.

The current wage of a tea garden worker is Tk 120 but this is accompanied by housing, medical treatment, rations and fuel. So, the total wage is around Tk 350, claimed Shibli.

The Cha Sramik Union and estate owners enter a two-year contract every two years that includes a mandate for raising the wage of the workers. Their salary will increase in the next term as well.

On the issue, AKM Rafiqul Haque, Acting director of the Project Development Unit of Bangladesh Tea Board, said an academic trust for the tea garden workers was formed to improve their education as per the instruction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Since the establishment of the trust, over 26,000 children of the workers have been given stipend, while other facilities for these workers directed by the prime minister are still in effect.

[Written in English by Syed Mahmud Onindo, edited by Biswadip Das]