Fallout of Poor Socio Economic Conditions of the Tea Workers: A Case Study of the Darjeeling Tea Industry

Abstract

The workers in the tea gardens and their families have for long suffered and are suffering from poor socio-economic conditions especially in the tea plantations of Assam and West Bengal where the wages of the tea workers is less than the minimum wage and there is lack of proper implantation of Plantation Labour Act, 1951. This paper27 based on the findings of the primary survey conducted in the tea gardens of Darjeeling, a tea growing region in West Bengal has tried to analyse the outcome of such situation in terms of rising absenteeism among the workers and labour out-migration in general and out-migration of permanent worker in particular. The paper shows that the tea workers remain absent from their work due to various reasons. In both the gardens the average daily rate of absenteeism was above 35 per cent in 2017 which was an increased figure as compared to previous years. Despite this rising rate of absenteeism, the steps taken by the management implied that the workers who are regular with the work have been working with their productivity increased. Also meagre income from the garden and the lack of employment opportunities, given the higher consumption expenditure has also been one of the major reasons responsible for the out-migration of labour from the gardens. There has been increasing rate of migration of labour with just 9 per cent during 2009 -2011 to 49 per cent in 2015-2017.This labour out migration has made tea gardens the source of cheap labour for the urban areas. The findings of the survey has been analysed with the help of descriptive statistics and also to understand the socio economic factors responsible for the migration of the labour from the tea gardens binomial logit regression has been used.