Darjeeling tea garden staff get salary hike

DARJEELING. After the sub-staff, the super-staff of the Hills tea gardens are also slated to get a salary hike.After negotiations with the Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labor Union (DTDPLU) - affiliated to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) - the garden management has announced a 33% salary hike for super-staff including clerks, medical and technical workers. The increased salary will be applicable from April.

After the increase in bonus and wages of the sub-staff earlier this year, the DTDPLU had been demanding an increase in salary of the super-staff. The union had even threatened to paralyze work in the garden last week after the management failed to do so.Finally, the decision to increase the salary was taken at a meeting that was held till late in the night on Monday. There are more then 1,400 super-staff in the 87 tea gardens in the Hills. "The 33% hike will be applicable for three years," said Sandeep Mukherjee, principal adviser to the Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA), an umbrella organization of the 87 gardens.

Trade union leaders expressed satisfaction over the hike. "We are happy that our demand was met," said Suraj Subba, secretary of DTDPLU. At present, the technical workers get something between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,500 according to their seniority and grade. The salary of medical and clerical staff range between Rs 8,000 and Rs 9,000.

( Source -Times of India)