Workers of two tea gardens of Nabiganj upazila in Habiganj on Sunday start an indefinite strike to press home their five-point demand for immediate payment of their due wages.
The workers’ leaders announced the programme on Saturday the afternoon after withdrawal of their blockade from the Dhaka-Sylhet highway at around 2:00pm on assurance from the local upazila administration to meet their demands.
Earlier on the day, they began demonstration blocking the highway at Rokanpur Bazar of Nabiganj upazila at around noon to press for the demands.The demands include payment of their due wages and festival allowances, repayment from their provident funds, ensuring their house rent and medical allowances, the agitating garden workers said.
Tea garden worker leader Subhas Rabidash said that the leaseholder group, which runs the both the gardens, failed to run the gardens for long due to mismanagement.
He said that the two gardens had 660 workers and that they had been pressing for their demands since January.
‘Not only arrears in the past, the authorities failed to pay the weekly wages for the past week that ended on Thursday. That is why the workers began agitation on Saturday and blocked the highway,’ he said.
Bawani Tea Garden Workers president Gopen Jhara said that they would start boycotting work from Sunday and continue their movement until their demands were fulfilled.
Manager of the two tea gardens, Fakhrul Islam, said that the demands of the workers were logical and said that he was trying to meet their demands through discussing with the leaseholders.
Nabiganj upazila Nirbahi Officer Imran Shahriar said that they convinced the tea garden workers to withdraw the road barricade and assured them of taking steps to fulfil their demands.
