Tea workers get more in kind than cash, says Bangladesh Tea Association

Bangladesh Tea Association, a forum of the tea estate owners, has said tea garden workers get more in kind than he or she receives in cash wage.

They said according to the current wage structure, a tea garden worker is paid Tk 145 a day which is not all they are entitled to.

Apart from it, the direct benefits include overtime, annual leave allowances, festival allowances, sick leave allowances, provident fund, attendance allowances and administrative allowances on the provident fund which when summed up stand almost double the average daily cash wage.

Besides, in-kind benefits also include the entitlement of 10.6 kilograms of rice and flour every week for a worker at an extremely subsidised rate of Tk 2 per kg.

With cash and kind, the daily total wage of a tea garden worker stands at around Tk 450 daily, according to the wage structure, claimed BTA.

Bangladesh is producing a record amount of tea every year through the toil of the tea workers.

In 2021, a record of 96 million kilograms of tea was produced in the country thanks to the hard labour of the tea leaf collectors.

Earlier, two agreements on increasing wages of the tea garden workers were signed but the fate of more than 1.5 lakh workers in the country has not changed much.